


FFXIV Write 2019

by Eremiss



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Overthinking, Self-Reflection, Spice, Spoilers, Working it Out, communicating, inner monologue, pondering, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:57:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 45,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eremiss/pseuds/Eremiss
Summary: The works from the 2019 writing challenge by @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast on Tumblr :DI plan to post all of the stories here, but I might not be the best at keeping up with Ao3 before the challenge is done >.>Responses to the challenge are posted daily (as I keep up /wheeze) on Tumblr, and they'll eventually wind up here, too, if you aren't about that tumblr life.(see: me not even making this until day 11 of the challenge /cough)I missed a week, so there are a few prompts I still have to catch up on.Spoilers and NSFW are marked by chapter. Enjoy!





	1. Index

1\. Table of Contents!

2\. Voracious

3\. Bargaining

4\. Lost

5\. Shifting Blame

6\. Vault

7\. First Steps (no entry)

8\. Forgiven (no entry)

9\. Free Day: The Little Things (late entry)

19\. Hesitate

11\. Foster (set post-5.0)

12\. Snuff (mildly spicy but mooooostly SFW)

13\. Fingers Crossed (late-5.0 MSQ spoilers)

14\. Wax

15\. Scour

16\. Free Day: (no entry)

17\. <strike>Jitter</strike> (CW for argument)

18\. Obeisant (Mild end-of-5.0 spoilers)

19\. Wilt

20\. Radiant

21\. Bisect

22\. Crunch (set post-5.0)

23\. Free Day: (no entry)

24\. Parched

25\. Unctuous

26\. Trust (spoilers up to Qitana Ravel/"The Burden of Knowledge" lvl 75 MSQ)

27\. Slosh

28\. Palaver

29\. Attune

30\. Free day: Heal

31\. Darkness (set post-5.0 + Spice/NSFW at the end)


	2. Voracious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set some time before 4.0

Parties were already something of a trial in Gwen’s opinion, mostly owing to her discomfort in regards to crowds, dancing and all of the gossip. The attention her climbing reputation attracted hadn’t helped.

But now Gwen was facing a new, completely different problem: she was _starving_.

And despite the (blessedly quiet) aching of her empty stomach, Gwen refused to let herself touch any of the enticing food that was provided in abundance.

Because of her dress. 

The beautiful gown, a gift from the Fortemps family, was a blessing and a curse. According to Emmanellain the whole house had had something of a hand in it, even the servants.

Gwen loved the gown. It was beautiful, certainly, but mostly she simply cherished it as a gift from her practically-adoptive-family. 

She smoothed her hands over the skirts to distract herself from the vaguest hints of nausea tinging the edges of her hunger, and traded a smile with a woman passing by. She’d meant to eat before getting dressed, but then the maids had gotten carried away with chatting and doing up her hair… 

Gwen turned, catching her reflection in the dark window she was hovering near. She barely recognized the woman wrapped in dark violet, delicate metal accents decorating the off-the-shoulder neckline and curving about her hips, the floor-length skirt ending with black embroidery and a fringe of black lace that just whispered over the floor.

She’d been told more than once that evening that she looked stunning, and…she had to agree, honestly.

But, Twelve help her, the _price_.

Gwen had nearly fainted when a maid had let the number slip. 

Obviously she should have known. The craftsmanship was immaculate and had been tailored to fit her. It was utterly exquisite and just manageable enough to wear. (The layers of underthings and all the assistance required to put it all on notwithstanding, that is.)

Gwen just hadn’t fully considered how much gil that translated in to.

When one owned expensive treasures they locked them behind the protection of a display case or mounted them safely out of harm’s way. They didn’t eat food over them, gourmet or otherwise. Nor did they cart them around a room crowded with things that would ruin them if one so much as carelessly jarred their elbow.

…Well, Gwen didn’t, anyway.

Judging by the way the other guests, all of them nobles, traipsed about in their finery carelessly eating and drinking, she was the only one..

Still, she refused to give into temptation. Hungry or not, she couldn’t bear the thought of damaging such a heartfelt gift, expensive or no. The price just served to…give the decision a little more weight.

Gwen frowned slightly, considering the sour tone of her thoughts. She liked to think she wasn’t the sort to get ‘hangry’, but that clearly wasn’t the case. At least not right then, when it was impossible to ignore the feeling of her stomach desperately trying to claw its way to one of the smartly-dressed servants drifting about the healthy crowd with trays of canapés.

Gwen plastered on a smile to turn down a glass of champagne, because alcohol on an empty stomach would do her no favors, then doggedly made her way out of the main room.

Distance would help, she told herself. Even though the smell of pastry crust and savory meat followed her into the hall, pulling like a siren song and making her legs weak.

It was going to be a _long _night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Who’s got two thumbs and is a week late!! 8D;;;;_  
Ah well.  
Better late than never!  
There are screenshots of the dress in question are [on one of my tumblr posts about Gwen, if you want to see it :D}  
eremiss.tumblr.com


	3. Bargaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Directly after 'Voracious'

Gwen hadn’t expected to find Thancred at the Count’s party, nor did she think she’d ever see him so finely dressed. In retrospect, it made sense the two went hand in hand.

The hour was growing late, festivities were winding down, and the her latest attempt to dodge further conversation (more like interrogation, gods but nobles liked to gossip) had led to her questionably fortuitous meeting in an unpopulated hallway.

Despite his refined appearance —if she didn’t know him she would have thought him a highborn— Thancred still had his roguish charms, and he was presently directing them all towards attempting to talk Gwen into a dance.

Even though he very well knew…

“I don’t care for dancing,” Gwen reminded him with a frown, her stomach eating away at her patience in absence of food.

Thancred hummed thoughtfully, standing closer than the nobles in the next hall would have considered proper. Gwen didn’t care for their decorum in the first place, let alone just then, and she hadn’t seen Thancred in days. Even with her sour mood she appreciated his polished appearance and the opportunity for a bit of time alone.

He reached out to brush away one of the curls that had been left free from the updo the Fortemps’ maids had spent most of a bell on, his fingers ghosting along her neck. His hand was far warmer than her bare shoulders and neck, the light touch inspiring a shiver that danced down her back.

Thancred’s hand lingered, one corner of his mouth tugging up into a lopsided smile. “So I’ve heard. But I rather hoped you might make an exception.”

Gwen pouted at him. A fair assumption maybe, she probably would have been more amenable on a night when she wasn’t tied up in knots about the safety of her dress, or wearing precariously thin heels that very nearly made her taller than him, or feeling so weak and irritable from hunger.

“Another time. I’m sure this isn’t the last party we’ll both attend,” she said simply.

She knew he wouldn’t give up as simply as that. He was a stubborn one. So she readied herself for a bit of banter. There were worse ways to spend the evening.

“What if I offer to buy you dinner?” Thancred suggested, a wry look edging onto his face. “I know of a few places yet welcoming patrons at this hour.”

Gwen’s stomach twisted with a mix of desperate hope and indignation. She did her best to put on some sort of unaffected, blithe expression. “The celebration was amply catered.”

A knowing little glint flickered in his eye, his fingertips trailing along her bare shoulder and inspiring another shiver. It would probably look scandalous if anyone were to see them. “Indeed, yet you didn’t touch a morsel all night. Most curious.”

Her pout bent into a frown. She should have guessed he would be the one to notice. No one else had commented on it.

Thancred was blatantly struggling to maintain something of a guileless expression. “I can’t fathom why. It was all exquisite. The Count clearly spared no expense.”

Gwen narrowed her eyes and folded her arms, beginning to obstinately settle her weight on her heels only to be stopped short when her balance wavered. _Damned shoes…_

And damned paranoia, too. She was plenty neat and careful, she really shouldn’t have been so terrified of such a small thing in the first place. It was ridiculous. She knew that. But no amount of saying so had made her any less nervous.

Thancred shrugged, brushing his fingers along her neck again, most likely in an effort to entice. “Nevertheless, that is what I offer in exchange for a dance. Only one. Though, admittedly,” he swept his gaze slowly down her dress, as he had many times since they’d bumped into one another, “a change of wardrobe would have to accompany our change of venue. Such places aren’t nearly so, shall we say, _refined _as,” he nodded vaguely towards the source of the mild music drifting down the hall, “our present surrounds.”

Gwen’s smart reply was cut off by an audible growl from her traitorous stomach. It, at least, was pretty keen on his suggestion.

Embarrassment painted her face with hot red, Thancred’s grin sending that heat racing all the way up to her ears. 

“Shall I take that as a yes, perhaps?” he asked, so very pleased that his voice was nearly a purr.

At any other time that tone would have been appealing, maybe even made her blush a little. Now it was downright taunting. He was _far _too pleased with himself.

Were it six bells prior, she would have had the willpower to muster her obstinance. But just then…

Gwen tried to sound reluctant, but she was sure she only succeeded in sounding pouty, and perhaps a bit desperate. “This sounds suspiciously like bribery.”

Thancred’s grin shifted to a rakish smirk, that little glint back again. He could put on whatever vestments he pleased, trim his beard and style his hair however he liked, but he would ever be a rogue at heart. “You wound me, dove. You’re free to refuse, of course. But, in case I’ve managed to sway you…”

He withdrew his hand and offered an arm like a proper gentleman, folding the other behind his back. “Shall we dance?”

Gwen still hesitated, the quickly swelling frazzle of stage fright at-odds with the groveling desperation in her stomach. 

“In private, of course,” Thancred added, his first act of mercy all evening.

The whole ordeal suddenly became a great deal less daunting.

After a long moment she sighed in defeat. She’d made worse deals. “Just one dance.”

Thancred’s expression brightened, genuine satisfaction lifting his smile. “Of course.”

Resigned, she took his arm, resting one hand in the crook of his elbow and the other on his bicep. Gwen huddled closer as they started down the hall, chilled skin and fingers eagerly soaking up the warmth. Her dress was warm, but only where it covered.

Thancred was grinning more broadly than was socially acceptable in Ishgard. His voice dropped to a private murmur, “If you might grant me one more indulgence…”

Gwen shot him a warning look, tightening her grip on his arm.

It was met with a devilish smirk that nearly made her stumble. “I would be glad to help with the aforementioned change of wardrobe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Two in one go!  
I have no illusions about catching up, haha. But these two happened to work together well!  
They both said ‘dance’, but I’m not entirely sure they were talking about the same thing >.> <.< >.> _


	4. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in early 4.0

Gwen stared at the sign, trying to concentrate, to comprehend, but only saw a strange arrangement of lines and curves. She made a frustrated sound and rubbed the back of her neck, feeling sweat gathering thanks to Kugane’s hot, humid air. 

The Echo was a wonderful tool for countless reasons, but it didn’t help one onze with reading.

It was rarely a problem in Eorzea, unless she was trying to assist the friendlier beast tribes. If ever she wound up with a document she couldn’t read, a fellow Scion who could was typically near at hand.

But now, on her solo excursion into Kugane, it was proving to be a troublesome shortcoming.

The street sign meant nothing to her. Nor did any of the plaques, posters and banners hanging all about the shops and stalls that filled the market, the goods they contained simultaneously strikingly foreign and distantly familiar. 

Gwen frowned at the sign and it’s inability to do anything to help her understand it. She had studied almost every day on the voyage east, and even enlisted Alphinaud’s assistance. She’d filling up pages of her journal with carefully copied and translated letters and characters as she worked to memorize them. She’d thought herself at least marginally prepared.

Yet there she was, struggling to find her way out of the suddenly-labyrinthine Kogane-Dorii markets. For the sake of all the time she spent studying, Gwen blamed the majority of her struggles on the fonts in use, the more stylized letters only vaguely resembling the ones she and Alphinaud had practiced. The rest she attributed to stress, her self-aimed frustration causing even the plainer fonts and more familiar letters to appear different than she remembered.

A clock chimed somewhere else, faint over the bustle of the market crowd, and reminded her she had given herself a time limit. 

Gwen sighed and quietly admitted defeat, letting her gaze drift over the myriad people moving about on their own business. Reading wasn’t working out, but it wasn’t her only option.

Now she just had to figure out who to ask for directions to the Ruby Bazaar…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_An NPC or two straight up states that the Echo only helps with verbal communication, but reading and writing is all on the WoL themselves, which is pretty interesting IMO._
> 
> _I’m not sure anyone actually, formally teaches the WoL how to read any of the Doman/Eastern languages (or if they did I missed it) and I think it’s funny to imagine them arriving and being faced with the realization of how much stuff is written down that the Echo 100% doesn’t help with.   
“Hey, uh, weird question…can you read this to me? >.>” _


	5. Shifting Blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone needs a 'Do Not Touch' sign

“Dusfkeather is not to be trifled with” tended to be one of the first things new Scion recruits learned. Whether they learned it the easy way or the hard way was entirely up to them.

Thancred had thought it would go without saying that antagonizing a beast that could tear a person in two was…inadvisable.

Alas, he’d nearly run out of fingers to count the number of times he’d been proven wrong. 

What aggrandizement or bragging rights or kinship –with others with a similarly poor balls-to-brains ratio or the griffin itself– they thought they’d get out of it, he wasn’t sure. 

Thancred babysat the crotchety bird whenever Gwen had a need to travel without him, had ridden him, too, and nobody was impressed with _that_.

Much less impressive, though hardly surprising, was how many of those people blamed the consequences of their foolishness on the griffin. 

No one believed them, but it didn’t stop them from trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had _precisely 0 FUCKING IDEAS_ for this prompt @_@


	6. Vault

It’s an understood rule that journals are meant to be private. They’re for the one who writes in them and no one else, unless specifically offered.

Gwen jealously guards her journal and the pages she saves, going so far as to lock it in a drawer in her desk when she’s not using it.

She doesn’t always carry it with her, though.

Locks can be picked, nigh-illegible handwriting can be deciphered, and secrets can be stolen as surely as gold and jewels.

Fortunate, then, that the one stealing hers keeps them safe and gives most of them back, in his own way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_I plan to do all of the prompts even though they’re late!! The old/missed ones will be randomly interspersed amongst the others.  
Also A SHORT THING, I DID IT_


	7. Hesitate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post 2.0, a month-ish after 'Kiss' from the February Prompts

Gwen resisted the urge to tap her fingers on her journal, trying not to outwardly display that her mind was working overtime. Writing helped her vent and sort out her thoughts because it forced her to break nebulous clouds of ‘angry’ or ‘scared’ down into their baser parts, into questions she could answer and work through. Sometimes that resulted in names and labels changing altogether, hidden and mislabeled feelings unmasked and properly recognized.

It wasn’t a perfect solution and didn’t always enough to solve whatever problem was plaguing her, but at the very least it always helped settle her mind.

But that meant she had to do some mental work first, and find the bigger picture so she could properly take it apart.

That was proving difficult, a dozen things buzzing around and tying together in odd shapes that didn’t seem to fit the lump of thoughts rolling so unhelpfully around in her head.

Gwen glanced left as subtly as she could manage.

Thancred sat a little less than an arm’s length away, having not moved an ilm from where he’d earlier plopped himself down on the couch to read. He was engrossed in his book and hadn’t sent any more teasingly overt glances towards her journal for several minutes now. 

They hadn’t talked a great deal about the two of them, one of the things Gwen was having trouble sussing out a label for at the moment, since they’d first kissed after her second victory over Ifrit. Nor had they talked about the handful of stolen little moments, kisses, glances, closeness, that had been happening since.

They hadn’t said a word about it, rather falling into it as if it were natural. Gwen even found herself reciprocating without a thought, in her own way. It was all so… 

Different? 

Yes, different fit, but that didn’t really offer much. The correct word wasn’t necessarily the right one, strange as that sounded in her mind.

Easy? 

Hm. It was accurate, it was close, but it didn’t fit quite right.

Casual?

Gwen wrote the word out and stared at it, rereading it until it started to fall apart and lose its meaning.

Casual. It fit better than easy, but it still wasn’t quite right.

At a base level, nothing between them had changed. They were still friends, companions, Scions, and they were still able to easily and competently work together, directly and not. They could still have completely platonic and serious moments just as easily and comfortably as before.

The realization was a massive relief, suddenly untying the knots and tangles of worry about damaged friendship and a damaged relationship as Scions that had been constricting her thoughts in quieter moments.

After Valtemont, who’d rearranged facets and aspects of their relationship at even the slightest hint of moving forward, even when they’d been (or Gwen had been, at least) comfortable and content, it was an overwhelming relief.

Gwen scribbled that out, deciding ‘casual’ would suit until she found a better word. She knew what she meant by it, and that was all that mattered.

There _were _changes, of course. How could there not be? But they were smaller, personal ones. 

Gwen’s thoughts had started to be a bit fuzzy around the edges when he was around, a feeling of endearment that lingered even after the occasional misstep or bout of grumpiness or brooding. His jokes, bad or otherwise, and little smiles made her laugh more easily than they used to. More easily than they probably should. 

Thancred, from what she could tell, had most changed in how they spoke. He’d become more comfortable with silence, with seeking her out to simply be near, no conversation necessary, just like the silence they were sharing on the couch. He hadn’t become more open so much as he’d relaxed somewhat, candid and plain statements becoming more commonplace amongst the jibes, sarcasm and deflection he always used.

She was fairly certain he didn’t call anyone else ‘dove’. And perhaps he smiled a little wider, a little differently, at her, but that might have had more to do with that fuzziness in her head. 

Touch and affection were still a stumbling block, though she was doggedly working to correct that. Closeness didn’t mean an immediate abolishment of boundaries, nor did it mean people would be comfortable with things they hadn’t been before.

Gwen thought that would be obvious enough, but Aldous and Valtemont had balked at the idea.

Thancred was much more aware of her boundaries than she was of his, though at some points she wondered if he even had any…beyond a few topics of conversation he refused to touch. Still, though, not being aware of a boundary didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

Gwen still considered it a big deal to simply let her fingers touch Thancred’s when they sat near one another, though she knew for him that was barely anything. Even so he’d do something to express his appreciation for the effort, a little smile or a brief nudge.

Thancred, for his part, displayed patience and restraint that she hadn’t expected given some of his other…habits. He leaned on her boundaries rather than bulling through them, easing just into her personal space when they talked or tapping her hand to gain her attention, little nudges that were easy to retract and rectify if it they pushed too hard.

Sitting on the couch as they were, just barely an arm’s width apart, was another little test. He’d acted casual as ever, expression easy and unconcerned, but he’d caught her eye and asked a question with a glance just before he sat.

And that had been another massive relief, lifting an invisible weight from her shoulders. 

Gwen shook her head, clearing away the rosiness turning her thoughts fuzzy, and scribbled some of that out. 

Different. Yes.

Easy…Yes, that too.

Casual. Absolutely.

Comfortable?

Gwen nearly started tapping her fingers again, stumbling over the word. She glanced at Thancred again as he turned a page, unaware of her constantly-moving thoughts.

In a strange sort of way, maybe…Yes. Comfortable. The sort of comfortable that grew and changed over time, ill-fitting for a moment before settling in again, larger than before and yet still as it had been

Gwen wrote more, not entirely sure the words made sense. She was more concerned with getting them out and written than them being sensible, that part could come later when she reread and rewrote them. 

They should talk, she knew, to know where they stood or at least make sure they were on the same page. She needed to know what page _she _was on first, though.

Gwen debated for a moment, easing her journal shut and worrying her lip as she considered that. What page was she on, anyway? 

One that still involved her hesitating to touch his hand or bump shoulders, at least.

The realization made her frown.

Change took time. And sometimes it happened slowly. There was nothing wrong with that, yet she found herself suddenly chaffing at the thought. She wanted to be more comfortable with closeness and touch, it was something she’d been grappling with since shortly after she became a Scion, when living and working with others had really put into perspective how… isolated she was, mostly of her own design. Yet she really hadn’t put in any work to make that change, had she…

Well, she could always start? 

Gwen glanced around, finding their little corner of the library empty. “Thancred.”

He looked up from his book “Hm?”

“Could I…?” Gwen gestured vaguely towards him, unsure how to ask and belatedly embarrassed that she had even decided to _ask_. 

He blinked slowly, unable to fill in the words she hadn’t said. “‘Could you’…?”

She hesitated, twisting her pen. She felt even sillier for asking, and for entertaining the idea at all, and– “Could I move closer?”

Something genuine flitted across his face that looked a great deal like surprise. And then his mouth curved into a smile, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Of course, dove.” He lifted his arm to drape it along the back of the couch and gestured her closer with a nod, “You needn’t even ask.”

“Asking is polite,” Gwen replied simply, pretending her heart wasn’t pounding and her mind wasn’t suddenly awash with uncertainty. 

‘How close’ was the biggest question buzzing around in her head as she stiffly collected her journal and pen and shifted over a few ilms.

“Not worried I’ll read over your shoulder?” Thancred teased. 

Gwen faltered for a moment, then mustered her obstinance and shifted closer. She was done writing, that was why she had even suggested moving closer, and it wasn’t like her handwriting was legible anyway. “That would only be a problem if I was going to keep writing.” She eyed him meaningfully, “Which I’m not.”

“I’m honored you have such faith in me,” Thancred replied sarcastically. 

When Gwen finally settled again she was well within his personal space and vise versa, her leg a few ilms from his. She tried to breath more calmly and loosen the rigid set of her back, the little thread of wit fading under a new whirl of uncertainty.

Was she too close? Was this too much?

Thancred hummed thoughtfully, and maybe approvingly, beside her and looked back down at his book. Gwen had expected him to say something, to make some sort of comment, but at the same time she was grateful that he wasn’t making a big deal of it. 

It would be easier for her to make herself relax if she could at least pretend as though this were normal. Normal was easy to learn, easy to emulate. 

Perhaps this could be a new normal, though hopefully with a little less uncertainty and overthinking involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Hnnnnnggg I wrote it and haven’t really edited it and we’re not allowed to edit it later and it’s kind of killing me._
> 
> _I realized I haven’t written a lot about Gwen’s transition from ‘please no touch, how does touch even work’ to ‘am going to hug you now’, so I thought I’d write a little about it._
> 
> _Threw in the names of Gwen’s two prior boyfriends/lovers. I might write some more about them at some point._


	8. Foster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thancred PoV, set post-5.0

Gwen would make a good mother. Thancred has suspected as much since he first saw her tending to a flock of unkempt street children in Ul’dah.

Though, admittedly, she would be one that would worry far too much.

Thancred has thought it before, on several occasions. It was hard not to, given the way she is with kids. But the sweet thought always turns bitter, like sugar burning in a pan. 

Gwen _would have_ made a good mother, if it weren’t for the Echo, if it weren’t for the Scions, if it weren’t for the Warrior of Light.

If it weren’t for him and that fateful day under the Sultantree.

He hasn’t thought about it in years. About five, to be precise. 

And then, all of a sudden, Ryne is beginning to lag behind them. Her movements grow labored, expression tightening with discomfort and concentration as a queasy color creeps across her face. 

This isn’t the first time she’s taken ill. Life on the road, on the run, is rough on everyone, but especially a child who spent the first many years of her life in a cell, not exposed to the world. Ryne is a lot stronger now, made of sturdier stuff than little, golden-haired Minfilia had been, but she’s still at a disadvantage.

Thancred is just glad they’re near civilization this time, instead of having to make due in the woods. 

This is, however, the first time Ryne has been sick since Gwen arrived on the First.

Gwen notices before Thancred does, and suggests they stop in Wright for the night. He swears she has a sixth sense for knowing when one of her companions wasn’t feeling well, one she has used on himfar too often.

Ryne is quick to protest, determined to bull through as she’s seen them both do so many times. They trade a brief glance and keep a guilty little cringe off their faces. Thancred puts his foot down and firmly states they’ll get a room for the night in Wright, his tone stern enough to discourage further arguments. He softens the authoritarian decision with assurances that they could all do with a break from nights on sleeping rolls and hard earth. After a beat, just as Gwen starts to give him a meaningful look, he adds that Ryne’s illness isn’t making her a burden, nor will her recovery cost them time or slow them down or whatever it is that’s surely bothering her.

Ryne is sullen for the rest of the walk, and glowers halfheartedly at both of them when she realizes they’ve slowed their pace for her. But Thancred can sense the slightest bit of relief in her sulking, and takes that as thanks

A few bells later poor Ryne is holed up in the small bathroom emptying her stomach… again. Gwen is with her, holding her hair and rubbing her back. She’s been all but attached to to Ryne’s hip since her symptoms started to grow worse.

Between the two of them Thancred has the more savory task, though it doesn’t feel as useful at that moment. He readies Ryne’s bed, gets their gear in order and digs out a few things they might need, then grabs a few extra towels and blankets and puts them somewhere close at hand but out of the way.

He hears more retching sounds and grimaces. He considers making a joke, trying to make light and lift their moods, but eventually decides against it. Jokes never did anything but grate on him when he was feeling ill.

Instead, despite how much Ryne will think the suggestion unappealing, Thancred goes and inquires with the kitchen about mild food and herbal tea. Back on the Source ginger was good for soothing the stomach, but he doesn’t know if the First has anything similar. 

The cook, an older miq–_mystel _woman –gods all these years and he still slips up sometimes, thank the Twelve that never happened with Lyse– is nothing but sympathetic. She has a child of her own, and is well versed in the trials and tribulations of sickness. 

She offhandedly refers to Ryne as Gwen’s child, and the assumption makes Thancred’s head seize up for a moment. 

She doesn’t notice, as he’s ever been a master of keeping his poker face even when the rest of him stops working, and she promises to send up something Ryne will be able to stomach. 

Thancred mutters his thanks and makes his way out of the kitchen, standing around at the bottom of the stairs for a moment before getting his head straight again.

When Thancred gets back to the room it’s empty and deceptively quiet, the door to the bathroom still cracked slightly. 

His mind is working again, but the line, _“Your little girl is in good hands. Tell her mother not to worry,”_ tips it off balance once more.

A strange, twisting feeling rises in his chest, at once tender and bitter. The dichotomy is unpleasant and confusing, and surely he has more important things to do than stand around worry about an offhanded comment…

Suddenly in want of something to do, Thancred gets a glass of water to put by Ryne’s bed. He frowns at the wastebin and sets about plundering a few other rooms to find one that’s not made of wicker or some other woven material. He’s suffered a few bouts of sickness, for various reasons, that involved instances where a perforated wastebin coupled with his decision to crawl to bed rather than sleep on the bathroom floor proved to be a mistake. The aftermath wasn’t pleasant for anyone.

…And with that matter handled, he’s _really _out of things to do.

Thancred sighs, running his hands through his hair a few times and wondering what to do with himself.

After a moment of quiet and stillness he recognizes how wild and frayed his thoughts are, the worry that has been eating and pulling at him loud and clear now that he has no means of keeping himself busy. 

Thancred closes his eyes and wills his thoughts to slow and still, weaving frayed edges back together into consistent, sensible thoughts. 

Was he this worried the previous times when Ryne was sick, when she had been Minfilia and it had just been the two of them?

Yes and no. Yes he’d been worried, but it had felt more manageable at the time because he had been the one caring for her. 

That realization inspires a weird, uncomfortable pang in his chest. Gwen is handling Ryne’s care now and doesn’t need his help. She hasn’t said he _couldn’t_ help, she hasn’t sent him away or anything like that, but it’s plain enough she doesn’t need him. The thought should be at least a little relieving, but it only inspires another tight pang,_“Tell her mother not to worry,”_ spiraling off and upsetting his train of thought again. 

Thancred rubs at his chest with a frown like the strange feeling is a surface-level itch and not something much deeper. When that offers no relief he tells himself it’s ridiculous to get so caught up in his own head like this. 

So Gwen’s taking care of Ryne. Big deal. So she doesn’t need help. That’s fine. It’s _fine_. What matters is that Ryne is cared for, not who does the caring. 

He mutters at himself and shakes his head. It’s ridiculous. He’s overthinking and tying himself up in knots– why? 

Because he’s not the one cooped up with Ryne in a bathroom that reeks of vomit? That’s a hell of a thing to whine about–and he’s _not_ whining about it. He isn’t.

Because one woman made one little throwaway comment? _One_. It’s ridiculous. Absurd, even.

Because that woman had jumped to conclusions –a perfectly logical and reasonable one, mind– about how Gwen and Ryne are related? Well it’s no surprise people would assume a child accompanying two adults would be related to at least one of them.

Even though, given Gwen’s brown-and-gray hair and deep green eyes, he’s not sure where they think Ryne’s red and blue came from. 

_Obviously not you__,_ slips through his head like a razorblade. He shoves the thought away, pointedly not thinking his own features and the colors they lacked.

Ryne doesn’t resemble either of them because they’re not related, of course. Everyone they meet probably assumes she’s adopted. Perfectly reasonable.

That had been the original point he’d been trying to make, only for it to sour and knot along the way.

Thancred rubs his chest again, still not feeling it through his plate armor, and shakes his head. He’s thinking about all that entirely too much.

It’s still quiet, which he makes himself think of as reassuring. At least Ryne isn’t vomiting anymore. 

He eases the door to the bathroom open and pokes his head in to check on them.

Ryne is curled miserably on the floor, her head in Gwen’s lap. Her red hair is wrapped and knotted up in a loose bun to keep it away from her face, and he’s not sure when that happened.

Gwen looks up, expression laden with sympathy and the mild frustration of one who can do nothing but wait. He’s wearing a similar look. She gives him a smile and nods him in. 

Thancred is suddenly reminded that Gwen is far better with children than him. In fact, despite Ryne’s initial envy of the Scions’ history and bond, the two quickly became close. 

Hardly a surprise, as Gwen has no problem getting close with anyone.

He knows that. He’s known it for years. Yet seeing the two of them together now…

That uncomfortable pang comes back, butting up against an equally powerful feeling that’s far softer and fonder, warm in a way that’s practically just as uncomfortable.

“Sleeping?” Thancred mumbles to break the silence.

Gwen nods. “She just drifted off.”

That’s good, at least. Sickness is always easier to deal with when one can sleep through it. “How is she?”

“Well enough, I suppose. I think it’s food poisoning, or one of those shortlived illnesses like we have Source. If I’m right, she’ll feel fairly awful for a day or so, with plenty of time in here,” she nods to indicate the bathroom, “but then she’ll be through the worst. Hopefully she can sleep through most of it.”

Thancred mumbles his agreement, looking over Ryne’s prone form. He lets relief wash over all the other feelings battling inside him and takes another calming breath. “Let’s get her to bed, then.”

Ryne sips listlessly at a cup of broth, her eyes just shy of closed. She wouldn’t even be sitting up if she weren’t propped against Gwen’s side, and Thancred is keeping a close eye on her cup, ready to catch it if it starts to fall.

Ryne doesn’t look quite so green anymore, thankfully, though beyond that she isn’t much better. She has a long night ahead of her, unfortunately. He really hopes she’ll be able to sleep through most of it. 

Gwen hasn’t spoken much other than to murmur gently at Ryne. She’s been doing little but fret, honestly. Thancred isn’t sure whether to find her hovering and coddling endearing, frustrating or concerning. 

The element of frustration gives him pause and inspires a little jab of guilt. 

Frustration. What’s he frustrated about? Gwen taking care of Ryne? Perhaps. In part. More like… frustrated that she’s taking better care of Ryne than he could.

Thancred frowns, glancing towards the darkening window.

That’s hardly fair. Gwen has always been the worrying sort, and she’s always tried care for the Scions, or at least lend a hand, when they were sick. This is par for the course, surely.

That she has the situation so well in-had on her own is leaving him a bit off balance, he can at least admit that to himself. There’s only so much to do to help one who is sick, and it’s all been done by this point. Gwen did most of it. Little as he wants to sit and wait around uselessly, there’s not much else to do. 

Whatever feelings all of that inspires, he knows, are his problems to solve. Or to talk about, because he needs to get better about addressing and discussing issues like that, rather than holding them in and burying them. That’s something they’re both trying to work on.

He hasn’t mentioned what the mystel woman said, which was probably what started all of this off. He’s not sure if he should, and he’s not sure if he wants to, either. Most of the tight, unpleasant pangs in his chest had started after her little throwaway comment.

Which is still ridiculous. So what if she said– so what if she made an assumption? People made similar assumptions about him during the years he and Ryne had been traveling together. Multiple people had called him her father right to his face, even. But it just been a word then, a word he’d forced himself to let roll off him like water on wax. Because his head had been too crowded with webs of heartache, denial and fear to let it be anything else– to let it _mean_ something.

But that was then. He’s working to make amends for ‘then’, and Ryne is open to them, thankfully. Even so, the whole thing is…complicated.

Thancred sighs softly. All of that is his problem, too.

Maybe the fact that the mystel had assumed that Gwen… but not _him_…

A hand rests on his, and he looks back. Gwen offers a small, tired smile. 

She looks… too weary, Thancred realizes. She looks like she’s already spent and worn out. Just one afternoon looking after a sick child is enough to exhaust the Warrior of Light and Darkness?

When she squeezes his hand he automatically returns the gesture, studying her expression curiously. 

Gwen looks older somehow, worry weighing heavy on her features and the gray in her hair standing out more than normal. There’s an old, fragile thing hanging in her eyes, a pall of melancholy and shadow that he hadn’t noticed before.

That pang he doesn’t want to recognize fades for a moment, tempered with insight and a sudden wave of understanding.

Ryne’s hands start drifting towards her lap and the cup starts to slip from her fingers. Thancred quickly takes it and sets it aside, and Gwen helps her lie down again. As she sets a cool cloth on Ryne’s heated forehead Thancred mumbles, “She’ll be alright.”

“I know,” Gwen says automatically. Knowing doesn’t always help, though.

Ryne mumbles something nonsensical, eyes tugging half open for a moment before sliding shut again. She’s fighting rest as hard as Gwen and Thancred do.

“She isn’t Aifread,” Thancred says, softly enough that Ryne won’t hear.

It’s true, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right thing to say.

Gwen almost flinches, tensing and hunching slightly slightly as though trying to physically endure the statement. Her eyes snap back to his, awash with a torrent of sharp, aching emotion.

Thancred holds her gaze against the tide, patient and steady.

They stare at one another for several breaths.

Then Gwen’s expression shifts, her brow knitting and bending just a little. Her green eyes slide aside and drop, her lips twitching with a few unsaid syllables before she mumbles, “I know.”

_Knows, but does not accept._ Y’shtola’s words had followed him out of her room in Slitherbough, ringing in his head.

Thankfully he isn’t Y’shtola, and Gwen isn’t him.

Thancred takes her hand again and squeezes gently, a silent assurance that his words had been an observation and nothing more. A statement, not an accusation.

She breathes deeply once. Twice. Then she sags, her posture softening as she returns his squeeze.

He’s pointed it out, and he knows that’s enough. He’s planted the seed, and it will grow on its own. 

Gwen will linger on it without further prompting, as she is ever wont to excogitate and overthink. She’ll process it on her own, maybe through writing, maybe through talking, because she’s been trying to do more of that lately, but either way she’ll work it out. The only question is how long it will take.

Thancred makes his way back to the kitchen when it is properly dark and most of the lights have been put out. The cook isn’t there, which is hardly surprising given the hour, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He can accomplish his mission in private.

Back in their room Ryne is sleeping, as she has been since dinner. Aside from the occasional turn and grumble she seems to be sleeping rather peacefully. 

Gwen changed clothes in his absence, shedding her armor and claiming one of his shirts. She sits on their bed with her journal open in her lap, one hand in her hair as she stares at nothing in particular and sporadically writes –_scribbles–_ whatever thought she’s managed to break down and shape into words.

Despite the tumult in his head, Thancred smiles a little. He’s always been amused by her habit of stealing his shirts, even though it occasionally proved annoying. Little things like that were what he’d missed the most during their time apart.

Five years…

Thancred offers her one of the mugs and sets his down on the nightstand. It’s not cocoa, but hopefully it’s close enough. 

Gwen puts her thoughts aside for a moment and accepts the mug with a smile of thanks. 

If he had to guess what she was thinking so very hard about…Probably his comment about Aifread. 

Rather than second-guess the wisdom of invoking such a poignant name, even so delicately, Thancred starts the process of removing his armor. Plate has its benefits, but quick and easy removal aren’t among them.

Gwen peers down at the mug and gives it a curious sniff.

“Masala chai,” Thancred says before she can ask, carefully setting aside his bracers. He keeps his voice low to not wake Ryne, but from the looks of it she’s dead asleep. “You haven’t had it?”

“No.” Gwen blows steam from the top before she takes a careful sip. She considers the flavor for a moment before her expression lifts slightly.

“Well?” he asks, more than a little expectant despite the hint of approval. 

She holds the mug close to her face, wrapping her hands comfortably around it and breathing in the steam. She murmurs, “It’s good. Thank you,” and takes another sip.

Thancred allows himself a satisfied smile, mood lifting for the first time all day.

In better spirits, the mystel’s comment doesn’t twist or kick so hard when he mulls it over again. “When I went down earlier,” Thancred says as offhandedly as he can, “The cook thought you were Ryne’s mother.”

Gwen blinks in surprise, a small, embarrassed laugh slipping past her lips. “Did she really?”

He grins at her, “And told me to tell you not to worry so much.”

The way she pouts and narrows her eyes says she thinks he’s lying about that part. 

Thancred chuckles as he tugs off his undershirt, knowing his amusement is only making her pout more. It lifts his mood a little higher, putting him malms above the bitterness he’d been grappling with all day. 

He really missed this sort of thing. The contentment, the ease…the closeness. 

“She said,” he decides at the last moment not to attempt an impression of the woman’s voice, “‘Your little girl is in good hands. Tell her mother not to worry.’”

Surprise flickers across Gwen’s face, morphing slowly into a thoughtful look as Thancred sits on the edge of the bed and starts on his boots. She’s probably trying to come up with a way to argue that she hadn’t looked _that _worried–when she definitely _had_.

Gwen says, a little carefully, “She thought _we _were her parents, you mean.”

Thancred opens his mouth to correct her and stops. _“Your little girl is in good hands. Tell her mother not to worry.”_

Your little girl. _Yours_.

She said ‘mother’ far more explicitly, but the implication that Ryne is his daughter –that he’s _her father_– is still crystal clear. 

It had gone completely over his head.

Thancred’s mind seizes up again. That aggravating pang –envy, he always knew it was but didn’t want to say so– stretches tight and snaps, leaving him blinking dumbly at the undone latches on his boots.

That’s not the only thing she implied, is it? There are layers, though she probably hadn’t intended them.

His and Gwen’s relationship is the Scions’ worst kept secret, and people making assumptions is hardly groundbreaking. Plenty have casually referred to Gwen as ‘his girl’ and he’s sure just as many have called him ‘her rogue’ or something along those lines. 

But none of that feels so strangely jarring as the implication that they had a child.

Even after they’d abandoned their efforts at secrecy, few people directly spoke of or commented on their relationship. Aside from their friends, anyway. After five years apart (for him) and the rough patches they’ve been through, old and new, that simple little assumption is… almost disorientingly heartening.

A cup taps against wood somewhere else, and then Gwen’s warm hand touches his arm. He lets her move it aside while he struggles to fit some sort of coherent thought through his mostly-immobile mind, struggling break the swell of over-large sentiments and half-formed thoughts down into simple logic and facts that he can file away like he always does. 

He’s been called Ryne’s father far more directly at least a dozen times before, even though they hardly look alike.

And more than a few people have both assumed he and Gwen are married and insinuated that Ryne was one, or both, of theirs. Even though they don’t look at all alike.

_Foster child, obviously_. 

So why is that mystel’s one little comment leaving him so winded?

Gwen’s leg presses against his and she tucks herself under his arm, wrapping her own around his waist. He leans on her in the hope that he could absorb some of her steadiness, or maybe that it would give him more energy to devote towards getting his head back on straight.

There’s a small smile on her face when she rests her head on his shoulder, one that’s equal parts knowing and teasing. One that says she knew the implication had slipped his notice, subconsciously or otherwise, until she pointed it out and she finds his realization and reaction to be _quite_ amusing.

Thancred knows he’s been sitting there dumbly for too long, but his thoughts are only just starting to come together again. At the very least he should get himself under control enough to muster up some suitably sarcastic comment about the look on Gwen’s face.

There’s a low, ominous moan from Ryne’s bed. 

Gwen scrambles to help Ryne lean over the edge of the bed, nearly tripping over Thancred when he lunges for the wastebin

He can think about it all later, right now he has a job to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _:D_   
_Still playing around with present tense, and tried to do less dialogue again along with more general vagueness._   
_I try too hard to be super crazy precise and accurate 100% of the time even when it doesn’t matter and general descriptions or implications would suffice @_@ (but they have to know the room is 6x10x10 so they can get the PERFECT PICTURE I’M TRYING TO CONVEY)_   
_I think I did pretty good here!_


	9. The Little Things (Free Day)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thancred pondering about the new relationship he's fumbling with. Takes place roughly during late 2.2/early 2.3

Simulacrum.

Urianger used the word in a lecture the other day, and it’s been harrying Thancred like a particularly persistent mosquito. The scholar had been talking about… er… Ascians, yes, that was it.

_Simulacrum_.

It hadn’t been emphasized, nor barbed; Urianger hadn’t directed it specifically at Thancred, nor cast him any sort of look to imply that his wording was purposeful or backhanded. It had just been part of the rambling explanation.

But it had struck him just right and clung like tar.

Thancred doesn’t care for the word. It’s so clinical and negative. So detached.

And so damningly _accurate _at describing his actions of late. Because responsibility, good judgement and his own ignored emotions have a habit of getting in his way and making his life difficult when it comes to a certain, specific person, and the best way he’s found to deal with it has been to…make due with someone else. 

_Many _‘someone else’s at this point, each of them reminding him of that certain person in one way or another. He can only remember a few off the top of his head, and makes no attempts to consider how he should feel about that. There was the Auri woman he’d met in Ul’dah, her flowing tresses a familiar shade of ash brown. And a blonde Miqo’te most of a fulm shorter than him with deep green eyes that had sparkled just so when she laughed at his wit. There was even a tall, lean Elezen man in Gridania with a gentle, patient mien that belied his perpetually stern expression. He had been something of a surprise, truth be told. While Thancred has been attracted to men before, the motive beneath his recent desires for companionship has had him leaning more towards the fairer sex.

Simulacrum. 

Thancred _really _doesn’t care for that word, but that doesn’t make it inaccurate or untrue or unfair.

The acknowledgement makes a thorny tangle of guilt and other things weigh on him that would surely take a toll on his mood if he didn’t work so hard to ignore it. 

Seduction as a tool aside, as his work for the Scions is an entirely separate matter, he’s never enjoyed feeling as though he’s _using _his lovers.

It’s not upsetting, per se, just the same way he’s not _upset _to hear he’s been on the receiving end of such a thing, rather it’s like… a dent or a chip in a statue. It’s still a statue, it’s still lovely, and it’s still everything it’s claimed to be and everything it’s _supposed _to be…

But it’s also, suddenly, less than ideal. Minorly, maybe, but noticeably. And going about trying to fix it, if even possible, is never worth the effort.

Eventually Thancred bit the bullet and just acknowledged the truth of it (to himself, anway): he’s seeking others for want of someone else. 

“Someone else.” As if feigning ambiguity is actually helping at this point.

Gwen. Guinevere. ‘Dove’. His friend. Thancred has known that all along, but even so the admittance hits him oddly. It makes something squirm and clench at the back of his mind in a way that feels a lot like what his nerves would do if he stood with one foot off the edge of a tall cliff. 

Being honest with himself didn’t change his situation much, except perhaps giving the whole thing a sharper edge. It certainly didn’t ‘lessen his burden,’ or whatever it is that admitting the truth is supposed to do. 

Thancred still dances around her name like it’s his swiving job whenever he’s able, because willful ignorance doesn’t twist at him or put him off-balance the same way.

It’s one problem of many, and it points right back to the main complication that is… whatever sort of relationship the two of them have at present. Thus far they’ve left it undefined.

No matter what they call it, Thancred knows he’s doing it an injustice with the habits Urianger so perfectly, unintentionally labeled. He spends time with Gwen, for reasons that are ultimately selfish, before running off (subtly…ish) to spend the night with an ill-fitting imposter. 

That’s what he’s doing, plain and simple, and no he can’t phrase it any more delicately or fairly because it’s indelicate and unfair by nature.

It isn’t fair to her, or the nebulousness that is ‘them’. Thancred knows the surest way out of it all would be to scrounge up the sense of decency he claims not to have lost and just… just step back– to go back to simply being friends and comrades like they were before. Uncomplicated. Simple.

But.

(There’s always a _but _that gets in his way like a brick wall. His head is a veritable maze at this point.)

But he can’t bring himself to let go of all the little changes that have accumulated since she let him closer. He can’t say he’s _entirely _happy with where he’s at, which he knows is entirely his doing, but he doesn’t want to leave it, either.

Gwen is a good and dear friend to him, for some reason he can’t fathom, seeing how he can recall shockingly few things he could have done to deserve being any more than her amiable colleague. And has only become more so

Gwen is just so…easy, though not in the derogatory way such phrasing leads one to assume. 

She’s easy to be around, to talk to, to sit in silence with, to work with, to ask for help, to lean on, to feel safe around–literally and metaphorically, in the sense that misspoken words or a bad day won’t be held against him, provided he makes appropriate amends or humors her rebuttal. 

She’s easy to balance when her level head tilts, and easy to soothe when she’s overdrawn. She’s tight lipped about her troubles and concerns, but they’re easy to pull apart and straighten out with a bit of extra insight. 

Easy. He’s not used to easy. Which is probably what’s making it all so _difficult_.

Most of Thancred’s struggles pertain to grappling with everything beyond their friendship and trying to hold it all in line, though it’s taken him far too long to finally get around to parsing them all out.

Gwen has become a master of lifting his mood and giving him a bit of confidence, because she smiles and laughs so readily. Even when he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for patience he can get a smile and a little banter out of her. She’s practically using his own flirtation against him– drawing him in with smiles and jokes the same way he draws in whomever happens to strike his fancy.

There’s a certain smile she gets when he comes up with some new inane compliment that throws his head into chaos, alarms echoing at the back of his mind at the same time as his mood jumps up a few notches. It’s not terribly different than when any fair maid is receptive to his flirting, except for the accompanying sense of _satisfaction _when it’s Gwen. 

Gwen is such a stickler for her own personal space that simply being allowed to stand or sit closer to her than anyone else –she’s grown more comfortable with all of the Scions but still doesn’t let them so physically near as him– feels like something with _weight_. 

He’s accustomed to more physical contact from those he’s intimate with, and even his friends, though that’s more a matter of them allowing the occasional whim to invade their space. Yet he somehow isn’t touch starved. It has to be some sort of quality over quantity thing, even though that doesn’t make any _sense_. An embrace and a kiss on the cheek feel nearly intimate and leave a fidgety sort of warmth under his skin.

A _kiss on the cheek_. Feels _intimate_.

Is he _certain _he’s Thancred of the Scions, who flirts as easily as he breathes? Thancred of the Scions, who surely holds some sort of (infamous) record for all the desert flowers he’s plucked, so to speak…? Or is he some besotted sodding _schoolboy_? 

When Gwen leans against his shoulder, when he lays his head in her lap and she runs her fingers through his hair, it feels like _something_. Her getting comfortable with such things was a sort of a learning process, but over time it became nearly second nature. Even after it’s practically commonplace, cuddling still manages to feel like something that _matters_.

Thancred had never considered simple, little gestures like that to be things of consequence, easy and thoughtless like idle conversation or waving hello. And then the struggle to put himself back together in Lahabrea’s wake had left him… _drawn_. When days were too long and his patience was too short and even being pleasant was difficult, nevermind being _charming_, the closeness of others or the weight of an arm around his shoulder could burn like hot water against chilled skin. The little things, fingertips lighting on his knuckles or a conversation started at arm’s length and brought closer, had begun to mean something then, like whispers he hadn’t been able to hear until everything else had gotten quiet.

Gwen has an entirely separate approach to closeness, to fondness, to intimacy, than him, which he thought would ward her off from the start. After all, they clearly wanted different amounts of different things. To try and combine such misalignment was surely an accident waiting to happen.

Instead, Thancred had learned that all of that simply meant Gwen… took everything a little slower. She would get there eventually, just over weeks rather than days or bells. And in the meantime, all she demands –no, _asks_; she doesn’t _demand _anything of anyone– of him is his patience and a bit of his time when they both happen to be at the Stones. Patience, time and understanding. Not endless praise, not a shower of gifts, not promises of devotion. 

Not even exclusivity.

In fact, Gwen had made sure to explicitly state that, rather than leaving him to wonder and assume.

The conversation they’d had to establish that had been… _something_. A roundabout, stumbling, awkward something that he’d gone into fearing a confession or proposition he’d have to reject for both their sakes. Best to put an end to things immediately, like ripping off a stuck bandage, rather than let them fester and cause grief that could jeopardize their professional relationship as members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and friendship besides.

Instead, much to his surprise, their talk had simply been… a sort of clarification and negotiation of expectations, so to speak. Because Gwen has always been an anxious sort that, not unreasonably, finds comfort in surety and specificity, particularly in instances that involve openness on her part. She also proved herself to be far more open-minded and relaxed in regards to others’ relationships and intimacy than what her own reserved and, in a word, _selective _nature had led him to expect. 

While non-exclusivity is his preference, Thancred can’t help wondering if Gwen’s willingness in that regard has more to do with the aforementioned misalignment of needs than her own tastes. She’s never offered to elaborate, and he’s never asked.

The biggest point of their discussion wound up being that: she’s the Warrior of Light, just as he’s a Scion, first and foremost, and their responsibilities are their top priority. 

They’re friends second, and anything else, more or less, is a distant third, and regardless of wherever their…_this_ went, those priorities could _not _change. 

They both had their own limitations and needs and, so long as they were comfortable with the arrangement and could agree that they would efforts to remain amicable should they go separate ways (because she was always so consumed by ‘what ifs’ and being realistic couldn’t hurt) as well as respect one another’s duties to the Scions and Eorzea, then… well, she was fine seeing where it went. 

If Thancred was willing, of course. 

He was willing. And he’d said so, even though it made something a little unsettled, like warning or those things he’d buried, start ringing and pulling at the back of his mind. In his defense, he’d still been a little off-balance from winding himself up in preparation to gently, _delicately_, rebuff the confession he’d expected.

It was all good in theory, at least. And even in practice…so far. And knowing that has kept Thancred (and maybe Gwen, he isn’t sure) from trying too hard to affect much change, lest the whole thing fall to pieces.

General awkwardness aside, the talk had given him an unexpected sense of relief, easing a bit of tension he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. Even though relaxing and loosening in one place tended to mean somewhere else grew tense and strained instead. 

Gwen didn’t expect him to change or be someone or something else, just as Thancred didn’t expect her to suddenly drop all her nervousness and hesitation and jump into bed with him.

…Not that he would have complained, mind. 

In fact, they’ve been moving more into _his _realm of intimacy of late. Really, it’s no surprise to think Gwen wouldn’t be satisfied with the most basic physical closeness forever. Their intimate moments are always slow, things that start with a lingering touch or look and gradually build until she’s pressed flush against him and his hands are twisted in her hair and clothes. Often as not it’s nearly torturous, in the best sort of way, to take his sweet time until her shy touches grow bolder. 

It’s not too dissimilar to their relationship, from meeting in Ul’dah up to now, in that way.

But there’s never any relief for the tension they build, because they always, _without fail_ end up interrupted one way or another. Either the last shreds of their own better judgment or hesitation jerk them back, or fate itself decides _that _is the moment one of their linkpearls should chime or someone should come rap on the door. 

Thancred is _convinced_ some higher power is conspiring against them at this point.

Teeth-grindingly frustrating as it is, in the end he knows it’s for the best. To go any further would risk upsetting the balance they’ve struck between keeping their priorities firmly in order and being more than mere friends. To push for more would be gambling with that stability and everything that has come from it, which they can’t afford to do. Not to mention the fact that the vague sinking feeling he gets at the thought of Gwen withdrawing from him far outweighs the temptation to go any farther and take, or give, any more.

It also might force Thancred to confront and sort out all of the things he’s been stifling and shoving down in the back of his mind for… longer than he wants to think about. But, honestly, that’s more of an afterthought.

It’s safer and _smarter _to stay as they are. It’s better for Thancred to keep the walls and tangles and buried things cluttering up his head to himself and settle for substitutes, lest he ruin… everything. It works, in one sense. And not in others. But it’s better to play it safe, isn’t it?

So he grits his teeth and does his best to see they stay as they are. 

They talk, they cuddle. Thancred’s heart lifts a little and he gets a bit of easy banter or quiet relaxation with her head against his shoulder or his arm around her waist. Gwen gets…the same, he supposes.

They flirt. Gwen does little things like press her forehead against his or trace the lines and calluses of his hands, and his thoughts ease and his skin tingles. Thancred murmurs little things against her ear and lets his hands linger here and there, and she blushes and shoots him looks ranging from amused to interested.

And when his thoughts wander too far they butt up against his self-made hurdles and kick up a clamor between his ears.

Eventually, after bells or days, it’s too much to ignore. 

So he slips away to find someone to ease his tension, someone to quench the burn he’s left with after they get interrupted again. 

Someone else who, somehow, some way, reminds him of Gwen.

Gods.

_Damnit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I submitted this as its own thing, but decided "Hey, I've got free days I never touched!" from this challenge soooooo.  
Might move this to be a part of the 'Guinevere Ashe' collection, but I'm not sure.
> 
> From Tumblr:  
_Thank you @rhymingteelookatme for beta-ing for me and all the suggestions! Particularly “OH BOI U GOT IT BAD THANC HAHAAA” *showers you with confetti and flowers*_  
_Thancred doesn’t know how to feelings you guys_  
_I’m kinda torn between the more lackadasical flirt and more duty-minded interpretations of Thancred I’ve seen in various fics because _**I love them aaaaaall**_. People are amazing at writing him and writing amazing stories and amazing WoLs._  
_I’m really trying to shoot for somewhere in the middle (like everyone, I think, haha)_  
_I think I hit that mark fairly well in Heal. And this! :D I really like how this came out._  
_I plan to write a lot more about this time in the game/their story. <s>Especially the part where Thancred stops being such a dingus</s> but it’s really probably most definitely gonna involve other NPCs which means I have to figure out how to write them first_  
_Fun fact: I don’t have a completely concrete idea of the in-game timeframe from 2.1 to 2.55, and on top of that the start of Gwen and Thancred’s relationship is relative to a sidequest (Ifrit Bleeds, We Can Kill It) except for the part where they were still at the Rising Stones (so 2.1 fo sho). _  
_This means I CONTROL THE TIMELINE!_  
_But also …_I_ control the timeline?_  
_oopsnotegotlongsorry_


	10. Snuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spicy tiiiiime

A sound seeps into her dreams, little claws skittering over a stone floor.

Gwen’s consciousness comes together gradually, thick and slow like molasses, teetering dangerously on the edge of slipping away. She turns her head and buries her face in her pillow.

The tiny skittering sound finds her ears again, followed by rustling fabric and a vague sensation near her legs, the slight pressure muffled by her sheets. 

The molasses warms, starts flowing a little faster, and Gwen somehow musters the will to crack one of her eyes open. Her room is dark, no light shining from the crack she left in the curtains.

It takes her a few beats to realize she can make out the shapes of the books and jars of herbs that crowd her bookshelf. Light from the hall always seeps in around her door, the hallways perpetually illuminated to prevent the Scions stumbling over one another in the dark in case of emergencies, but it’s usually too paltry to see by… if her door is closed.

Gwen blinks slowly and laboriously shifts her gaze to her door. It’s not closed. She frowns petulantly at it.

She hears a little snuffling sound, quick, tiny breaths near her shoulder before soft fur ghosts against her ear. An intense tickle races down her back like a jolt of lightning, electrifying her consciousness into action.

Gwen’s body jerks, her mind still sticky while her muscles clumsily react without her. She swats a hand at whatever tickled her, feeling the slight weight jump to her hip and skitter off of her. 

Nutkin scampers around on her bed, chittering happily at the sight of her awake. It dashes down her bedlinens and dashes for the door, pausing to turn and look at her with large, expectant eyes.

Gwen frowns at the little creature, mind laboring to process the weird display.

“Where’s Thancred?” she asks, voice thick and soft with sleep.

The nutkin squeaks and runs a little figure-eight, bushy tail waving behind him.

Thick, slow sleep pulls at her, the warmth of her blankets and softness of her pillow never more tempting than that moment.

Nutkin squeaks again, standing on tiptoes with ears pricked towards her, waiting hopefully.

Gwen groans, hauling herself up with stiff, tired muscles. “Fine, fine, where is he…”

Nutkin leads her down the silent hallway, scampering in circles around her bare feet when it thinks she’s not moving quickly enough. Gwen refuses to be rushed, gathering her blanket more tightly around her to keep out the Mor Dhonan chill. The chronometer she passes says it’s slightly after three in the morning.

She thought the little creature would lead her to the library. Instead it takes her to Thancred’s room, his door cracked open just as hers had been. Faint light from a desk lamp shines out into the hallway while the overhead light is off, perhaps in an effort to make his late hours less obvious. Too bad his nutkin has ratted him out. 

The rogue is at his desk buried in three different books, head leaned heavily in one hand while the other slowly scrawls notes.

Nutkin dashes away, stealthier than his master. It scales Thancred’s dresser and disappears from sight.

Gwen sidles into the room, mind still a little slow as she studies the slouch of Thancred’s shoulders. She belatedly thinks he looks tired, and even thinking it nearly makes her yawn. She tugs her blanket clear of the door before pushing it closed behind her. 

Thancred tenses at the sound, pen pausing. Apparently he was so very so engrossed that he hadn’t heard her sneak in. A beat later he breathes a sigh and relaxes, beginning to write again, “You’re up late, dove.”

“So are you,” she drawls, meandering over to his desk. His room is significantly cleaner than hers, only a single discarded shirt lying out of place. The blankets on his bed are rumpled and pushed aside, as though he’d either not made it that morning or given up on trying to sleep and started working instead.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Thancred hasn’t looked up from his notes, but she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Your nutkin.”

He stops writing again, lifting his head curiously. “Nutkin?”

“The little devil has learned how to open doors,” Gwen says mildly, leaning her hip against his desk.

Thancred chuckles ruefully, looking up and tilting his head apologetically. He’s removed the black cloth he normally wears over his eye, pale white and soft amber looking up at her. “If only he’d use that talent for good rather than bothering you in the middle of the night. My apologies, dove.” He nods towards his bed, his smile slightly hopeful, “You’re welcome to stay, seeing how you’ve come all this way.”

Gwen huffs a laugh at ‘all this way’, rubbing a bit of haze from her eyes so she can better look him over. He’s slouching again, eyes half open with shadows hanging heavy under them. He’s plainly tired but, given the workload he’s foisted upon himself, he has no intention of sleeping any time soon. Or at all.

She decides she should do something about that, though her sleep-addled mind only comes up with a few ideas.

Trying to talk him into going to sleep never seemed to work, as he was much too practiced at dodging and deflecting that sort of thing. Requests to cuddle, particularly to help _her_ sleep, were usually enough to at least get him into bed, but it wasn’t uncommon to find him back at his desk when she woke in the morning. Which left…

Thancred makes a confused sound when Gwen pushes his writing arm aside. And another, more shocked one when she swings a leg across both of his and settles rather unceremoniously in his lap. 

He blinks slowly, mismatched eyes wide, before he reigns in his surprise and regards her with an amused look. “Need something, dove?”

Gwen wants to speak, but nothing properly witty or eloquent or seductive comes to mind. Hardly surprising, as she’s making this up as she goes along and she’s never been the best with words or flirting, but it’s still a little disappointing. 

Instead she settles for action. She’s far better at that, anyway.

She shrugs off her blanket, watching the way his eyes follow it and suddenly widen when his gaze reaches the bottom hem of her nightshirt, pushed a little above mid-thigh, and her bare legs. A muscle in his jaw tightens, and a certain sort of interest slowly replaces the amused expression on his face.

Gwen smiles to herself as he finally starts dragging his eyes back up, pausing to appreciate way the neckline dips and gapes when she drapes her arms around his neck.

Thancred’s eyes are darker when they meet hers again, warm, intent and definitely interested. He mumbles, voice a little lower and quieter than necessary, “…That’s my shirt.”

Gwen suppresses a shiver and halfheartedly tells herself it’s from ambient chill of the air rather than his voice. She suddenly isn’t the least bit tired. “I borrowed it.”

“Stole,” he corrects, tugging idly at one of the too large sleeves. He pulls enough to shift the neck hole off-center, his gaze leaving hers to slide over her collarbone and shoulder. “Borrowing implies permission.”

Gwen watches his gaze start to drift down again, her face growing hotter with every ilm it sinks as it follows the curves and lines of her body all the way back down to where she’s straddling his lap. One of his hands settles on her hip, slotting right where he’s held her before to steady and guide her rhythm; she can feel the heat of his palm and fingers burning through her shirt.

Excitement and heat start to coil low in her stomach and prickle up her back. She trails her fingers across his shoulders, attempting to be teasing, and she’s rewarded with him shifting in his seat. Her heart beats a little faster in her chest, and she has to work up a bit of nerve to murmur, “Do you want it back?”

Thancred’s eyes snap back to hers, the corners of his mouth twitching in a suppressed smirk. Both of his hands, warm and rough, settle on her thighs and squeeze, feeling her bare skin and the way his touch makes her muscles tense and jump. The warmth in her face is starting to spread down her neck and she bites the corner of her lip, struggling to make it look seductive instead of simple habit. The sight puts a pleased smile on his lips, which was just the sort of reaction she wanted.

He sits up straighter and leans in a little, “And if I say yes?”

Gwen can’t help shivering at the little thrill that races through her, and she doesn’t even try to blame it on the chill this time. Witty responses evaporate and disappear, hiding behind eagerness for more– to feel his skin against hers, his mouth, his hands, the taste of his skin… She tries to hold out for a little longer while she still has the upper hand, leaning in as though to kiss him and stopping at the last second to instead brush her nose against his. 

Her voice is soft and teasing, only half on purpose. “I suppose I’ll have to give it back, then?”

Thancred eyes narrow slightly, half-lidded and burning even as the rest of his face tries to affect a look of suspicion for her obvious ploy to distract him from his work. His hands shift on her thighs, nudging at the hem of her –his– shirt.

He takes a slow, slightly rough breath, his smile widening just a bit before he mutters, “You’re just trying to get me in bed.”

Gwen grins coyly and presses her lips to his rather than trying to fumble for another response. Despite her fluttering heart and mounting eagerness she’s slow and purposeful, kisses lingering and melting together as the heat of his mouth and his hands consume her attention. 

He groans softly and she’s not sure if the put-upon tone is genuine or just for show. Either way he kisses her back fervently, matching her languid pace. Pleased little tingles dance across her skin when one of his hands climbs to her hair and the other presses to the small of her back. She makes a breathy little noise when he pulls her closer and he replies with a low sound that makes her heart skip. 

Thancred shifts his legs apart, forcing hers to spread a little further. Her breath hitches, and she tightens her arms around his neck to steady herself. 

“I have,” his mouth moves slowly against hers, hot and hungry, “work to do.”

“Tomorrow,” Gwen murmurs, letting a little neediness seep into her tone. She drags her nails over his shoulders and up into his hair, tugging at pale strands. He shivers against her and his hands tense, and she hears his breath catch for just a moment. Her thoughts are starting to fall apart, satisfaction and rapidly growing want drowning out the time, why either of them were awake and why she’d come to his room in the first place.

Thancred lets out a far more enticing groan when her teeth graze his lower lip, the sound going straight to the heat pooling between her legs. She makes another breathy sound against his mouth, asking for more. 

He tugs gently on her hair and she yields to his request, letting him tilt her head back and angle aside. His hand moves against her back, exploring and touching greedily as his mouth drifts to her neck. His lips burn against her skin as he picks a slow, meandering path down to her shoulder, lingering and worrying his teeth against the places that draw out the neediest sounds before soothing every nip and bite with his tongue.

He purrs against her skin, “Fine. You win.” And Gwen’s too busy melting at the sound of his voice and the slide of his tongue to register what he said, eyes fluttering shut.

The hand at her back fists in her shirt and presses firmly against her rear, pulling her flush against him. Gwen’s breath catches when she feels his arousal between her legs, and all of that heat pooling in her abruptly sparks and _aches_. He claims her mouth again, tugging the shirt up until it bunches beneath her breasts, “But I’m taking my shirt back.”

She shifts for balance and grinds her hips down against his in place of a reply, the wonderful friction and the sound he makes sending molten electricity dancing through her veins. 

Thancred mutters a curse, hooking his hands under her thighs and pushing his chair back. He lifts her easily and she clings to him, mouthing at his sage brand. 

Books clatter and thud carelessly on the floor when he sets her on his desk, the utter disregard for his previously all-consuming work pulling a dazed laugh from her. Thancred leans back and tugs at his shirt, giving her a wide, sultry smile that makes her tighten her legs around his hips and draw him closer.. 

Gwen belatedly realizes how well she can see him, watching muscles shift and flex beneath scarred skin as pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it aside. 

The lamp is still lit, teetering precariously at the edge of his desk. With her last onze of sense Gwen uses a bit of aether to snuff it out, lest it fall and set everything ablaze. 

The room falls dark just as his mouth seals over hers and rough fingers slide between her legs, making her thoughts fizzle out entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_I haven’t read a lot of other responses to this prompt, but I’m sure they got wild lololol_  
_<strike>Alternate scene: “Need something, dove?” “THAT DICK”</strike>_


	11. Fingers Crossed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set towards the end of ShB -- Late ShB MSQ spoilers!

_Spoilers for late ShB (lvl 77+) below the cut!_

Crossing fingers doesn’t fix anything.

Thancred isn’t sure where Ryne picked the habit up, but she’s rather staunchly stuck by it. Probably from the kids at the Crystarium, or maybe even from Gwen. He does his best not to encourage it, though he honestly can’t explain why.

He hasn’t yet made the mistake of saying so to Urianger or Alphinaud, lest he get lectured about how people express their faith and hope in various ways and whatnot.

It’s not harmful, he’ll grant them that, but it’s still rather… childish and superstitious. It’s just crossed fingers, after all. 

It certainly doesn’t help with their journey to the Tempest. Nor, once they’ve touched down on the seafloor, does it help them figure out where in all seven hells they’re supposed to go next.

Thancred still can’t help scoffing and shaking his head at the sheer ridiculousness of their situation.

Bloody _fey_.

When Bismarck had said it would give them a way to walk the seafloor, Thancred and the others hadn’t thought it was being quite so _literal_. 

Despite his knack for holding his breath, Thancred had hoped the magical creature had meant to bequeath them the ability to breathe underwater, like the Kojin’s kami had done for Gwen. Truth be told, he’s always been a bit envious of the ability. For a powerful being like Bismarck, a _flying fey whale_, surely that wouldn’t have been too hard.

Nope.

The seafloor is nothing but strange and uninviting from the moment they arrive, and only in part due to the suspicious _lack of sea._ It’s an utterly alien place, from the geography to the countless odd corals and plants that sag and droop on the craggy, black rock formations that loom as tall as the Crystal Tower. The dank air reeks of salt and fish, clammy and dark as far as the eye can see between the lack of light and the chill falling from the immeasurable tonze of water hanging somewhere out of sight over their heads.

Thancred puts extra effort into not thinking about that last part. Nor does he let himself ponder how long it will all stay up there. Bismarck had been terribly vague, as all fey tended to be. 

Ryne pulls Thancred aside after they’ve walked barely half a malm, so concerned she’s nearly wringing her hands, to tell him she’s worried that Gwen is cold. 

Thancred isn’t surprised that the chill is too much for the desert-born Warrior of Light and Darkness, but he is impressed, and a little touched, that Ryne noticed so quickly. Gwen apparently hadn’t stopped to consider that the bottom of the sea might be cold–

His mouth twists with a grimace and he retracts that little jab. Everyone makes mistakes, and Gwen’s got bigger things to worry about.

–so he lends her his coat.

Gwen, arms folded tight against her chest, regards him with narrowed eyes and the beginnings of a pout. Unsurprisingly, she refuses the offer. She insists he give it to Ryne instead, as their youngest member is plainly less equipped to deal with the chill. 

Endearing as her selflessness and concern for Ryne is, Thancred holds firm and fixes her with his best approximation of the flat, neutrally-disapproving expression she so often uses to on overly-rambunctious children. Ryne can handle herself, and she isn’t the one in dire straits. He only touches the latter topic obliquely.

Gwen squares her shoulders, ready to argue with him– but not him, Ryne and the rest of their friends.

Cowed by the combined might of their genuine concern for her comfort and wellbeing, Gwen reluctantly accepts defeat and shrugs his coat on. She gives each of them a look like they’d somehow betrayed her trust by forcing her to accept the kindness, mumbling about how the bottom was going to get dirty dragging on the ground.

When she thinks no one is looking she more thoroughly bundles herself up in it, and he swears he hears a sigh of relief. Thancred keeps the little surge of satisfaction and affection the sound inspires to himself.

The Ondo, at least, prove to be more pleasant and reasonable than the Sahagin had ever been, with a few choice exceptions. Despite their understandable trepidation and confusion about their sudden –and frankly inconceivable– predicament, they’re willing to grant the Scions shelter in The Cups, in exchange for… chores. Always chores.

Crossed fingers don’t help with chores either, unless one wants try and brag to the Ondo via show of dexterity. The webs between the beastmen’s digits probably made crossing them troublesome.

Bells later, after a dozen-odd tasks, a sparse meal and a bit of talk, the Scions settle in to their loaned shelter to rest for the night –or the approximation of it, seeing how the damn light is back. The cave isn’t much, but they’ve certainly had less, and worse. Thancred picks a spot and gets as comfortable as he can on mildly soft sand, with the sea-eaten cave wall at his back.

Gwen takes the time to speak with everyone before making her way over to him. Her steps are steady but slow, and she’s still bundled snugly in his coat. It’s obviously too large for her and, yes, the bottom is dragging on the ground. So long as she’s warm, he doesn’t mind. She’s squinting at him as though she’s trying to look at the sun, and he realizes she’s been squinting at just about everything since they caught her at the Amarokeep. 

He recalls an instance earlier when she mumbled that everything was too bright. 

Not the strangest comment… if they’d been on the surface where the light ran rampant, rather than on the dingy, dimly-lit seafloor. Perhaps the narrow-eyed look she gave him earlier hadn’t been one of annoyance or disapproval after all.

She moves to sit beside him and Thancred stops her, shifting his legs apart and motioning to the space between them.

One of Gwen’s brows curves up in a poor imitation of the dubious expression he’s long mastered, faint pink fading into existence on her cheeks.

Not a single onze of him wants to admit to –or even acknowledge– the nagging, needy desire for some sort of comfort or reassurance that has been carving a hole in his chest since she collapsed at the top of Mt. Gulg. Seeing her awake and moving about isn’t enough to get rid of the sickening memories of her skin cracking with light, or gathering her limp body into his exhausted, shaking arms, or the sound of her pitiful, wet wheezing. He needs more than just to see her; he needs to _hold_ her. Gwen is surely in need of comfort herself, he reasons, which is all the justification he needs to put aside their penchant for privacy. It’s not like they have any other option, given their circumstances, and they’re among friends, so surely she won’t mind.

Thancred simply gives her a lopsided smile and gestures again.

After squinting at his face for a _little _too long, Gwen obliges him. She settles between his legs and leans her back against his chest, fussing with his coat and shifting around. He slides his arms around her waist as she finally settles. She hums softly beneath his ear as she reaches up to tug out the tie in her braid. 

It’s nothing like the slog down from Mt. Gulg.

Gwen is warm and _alive _against him, relaxing contentedly into his embrace and smoothing her fingers over the back of his hand. Invisible weights lift and vanish, knots loosen, and the unspoken tension that’s had him –and everyone– drawn tight as a bowstring for weeks finally begins to evaporate. 

The memories of the heavy, hollow pit opening in his chest, of watching over her while she laid in bed, still and pale as death, for _weeks, _and all that gnawing fear abruptly vanish to the back of his mind. It’s all he can do to resist letting out an explosive sigh or clutching her tighter, a warm surge of relief and comforting security threatening to crack his unflappable, cool-headed facade. 

Thancred sags a little and leans his head heavily against hers, feeling as though he can finally breathe after teetering on the edge of drowning for longer than he wants to think about. He turns his nose into her hair, allowing himself a small, contented hum and a moment of soft, indulgent solace.

How deeply shaken and fragile this whole ordeal left him and how keenly Gwen soothes him are things he can try to logic his way through, minimize or explain away some other time. For now he savors the closeness, breathing the smell of her hair and gratefully soaking up the contact. He savors all the little things that serve as palpable reminders that she’s still there and still fighting. That remind him they still have time to save her.

Then he measures his breaths and collects himself again.

It’s not long before Thancred feels eyes —about half dozen pairs— on them. He sits a little straighter and schools his expression into something properly composed and neutral. Someone has to keep themselves together through all this, after all, and he’s already decided that’s supposed to be him.

Gwen either doesn’t notice the extra attention or doesn’t care. She doesn’t so much as tense or shift around, instead blindly feeling out the shape of his hand to keep her own busy while she breathes in a steady, meditative sort of way. Thank the Twelve for that, as this sort if attention and staring, even from friends, is usually enough to make her reconsider affectionate acts like cuddling–which would be both immensely disappointing and somewhat awkward, as he’s not entirely sure he can convince himself to let her go.

When all of the eyes eventually, finally, turn elsewhere, Thancred allows himself to relax again. 

The eerie, odd ambiance of the water-less seafloor is far away in their cave, and even his quieted voice sounds loud. “How are you feeling?”

Gwen opens her mouth but doesn’t speak, closing it again a moment later with a look of serious consideration. At length she sags more heavily against him, her eyes sliding shut, “Worn out.”

Thancred hums softly, wondering what sorts of thoughts and questions might be swirling around in her head. What would be going through his head if their positions were reversed? How would he be faring against the constant strain of the light? He has no idea.

He’ll have to try and steal a look at her journal tomorrow. He’d barely read it while she’d been recovering, too consumed with her care and tearing the Crystarium apart in search of a cure. Even before that she’d been keeping it bothersomely close all the time. Probably worried she’ll ‘lose’ it again like she had after Il Mheg… 

Thancred takes his time studying Gwen’s face, looking for some sign of eerie brightness or any trace of those terribly brilliant cracks of pale light that had spiderwebbed across her skin. He listens to her breathing, searching for any hint of wheezing or gasping.

He finds none. There aren’t even traces of the initial cracks, and her breathing is steady and easy. But the relief it brings is paltry, turned feeble by the thought of the razor’s edge she’s balanced on even as they sit there.

Gwen sighs softly, nestling down into his jacket and turning to tuck her head in the crook of his neck. Her hair tickles his cheek, and Thancred wonders if there are more gray streaks in it than there used to be. He can’t rightly tell.

She fidgets with his coat for a moment, “Do you want your–”

“Tell me you aren’t trying to offer me the jacket you’re so desperately bundled up in,” Thancred drawls. He wasn’t nearly so affected by the chill in the first place, and he’s perfectly comfortable cuddling.

He knows that makes her pout at him, but he also knows there’s no real heat behind it. He purposefully looks elsewhere, blithely oblivious to whatever look she’s giving him. 

A hint of normalcy never hurt.

Alphinaud and Alisaie are speaking with Ryne on the other side of the little fire, his grimoire and her focus laid out in front of the younger girl. While Thancred is glad they all get along so well, he’s not sure how much he wants the twins to actually influence Ryne. The First isn’t ready for a third Leveilleur

Urianger and Y’shtola are having their own discussion on their side of the cave, and the word ‘Ronka’ confirms it’s a topic Thancred knows next to nothing about. Every now and then the elezen casts a long, regretful glance towards Gwen, his golden eyes just _barely_ avoiding Thancred’s. Whatever Y’shtola is trying to distract him with, it’s clearly not working.

Protective aggravation starts to come together beneath Thancred’s thoughts, anger and defiance far easier to grasp and hold than gentler, more patient things. His arms tighten and he curls slightly around Gwen, as though he can bodily shield her from more schemes and secrets.

Feeling him tense, Gwen rests a hand on his and lifts the other to his cheek. Her fingers are cool and calm against his skin, her touch smoothing the sudden wrinkles in his temper.

Thancred looks elsewhere and closes his eyes, drawing a purposefully slow breath through clenched teeth. He wills his grip to ease and pushes away the sharp-edged feelings trying to find purchase in his thoughts.

It isn’t fair to any of them to throw around blame, and no good will come of being angry at his old friend for trying to do what he thought was best. Twelve know Thancred’s good intent has fallen short or turned rotten through no fault of his own plenty of times. Besides, Urianger is punishing himself enough as it is. He doesn’t need, and doesn’t _deserve_, to have Thancred make it any worse.

Once he’s relaxed Gwen’s hand slips from his cheek to settle in her lap. “The place the Ondo want to take us,” her voice is soft and starting to slip with drowsiness, “what do you think it’ll be like?”

Thancred grunts, still not fully extricated from prickly threads of frustration and spite, “Illuminated.”

Gwen’s scoff is cut off by a yawn. “My, how insightful…”

He turns to kiss her hair and bids, “Go to sleep, dove. Pondering can wait,” rather than trying to draw out their banter. She needs to rest while she can, and he’s sure her safe repose will soothe the last of his bristles and ease his own rest.

He expects her to argue or make some quip or comment about his worrying, like she normally does. 

Instead she falls silent.

After a long stretch of half-overheard conversations Thancred lowers his head slightly, nudging her temple with his. “Dove?”

“Not sure if I’ll be able to,” Gwen’s voice is a whisper, just starting to strain. “Sleep, I mean.”

“Worried about nightmares?” he asks. “I’ll be here.” His presence had helped on the Source, and he’d been rather adept at soothing and calming her when that wasn’t enough.

Gwen makes a dissenting sound. “It’s…” she hesitates, “really bright.”

It’s not. The Cups is gently illuminated by strange, bioluminescent sea plants, and their light is dim and easy on the eyes. Where the two are cuddled at the back of the cave, in particular, is well shrouded and gloomy.

Thancred isn’t sure how to reply, his thoughts getting tangled around a burst of realization, _She’s been squinting since we caught up with her, and she even said the seafloor was too bright. The light is in her eyes. How well can she even see? _

His mouth twists, a bitter thread of helplessness threatening to tie up his throat. “Worst comes to worst, we’ve ample magics on hand with Y’shtola and Alphinaud. And Urianger,” he mumbles, grateful they were already speaking softly so his lowered voice doesn’t sound odd. 

If Gwen heard the little pause before the astrologian’s name, she doesn’t mention it. “Here’s hoping I won’t need it.” She nuzzles his neck and pulls his coat up a little before tucking her head under his chin. She rests one of her hands over his again, “Goodnight.”

Not trusting his voice, Thancred settled for leaning his head against hers and humming under his breath.

It doesn’t fix anything, but it’s not too unlike hope. And he knows how to work with hope, how to hold onto it and turn it into something real. He can believe in hope.

He tucks his free hand out of sight and crosses his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_This kinda got away from me >.> _  
_Moar Thancred PoV! [Inspo pic is a commission on my tumblr]_


	12. Wax

The storm clouds had cleared, allowing the calm, waxing moon to illuminate the Twelveswood. Fingers of silver light filtered down through the leaves and branches, shifting and dancing with the wind.

Thancred had seen Gwen slipping out of the Carline Canopy, despite being barely recovered from her ‘discussion’ with the Lord of Levin, and let his curiosity —and, maybe, perhaps, a _little_ bit of concern— get the better of him.

He hadn’t expected her to lead him, path not wavering despite the fluctuating moonlight, to a ramshackle little shed just outside the edge of Gridania. It was a sad little place, plainly abandoned and worn near to collapse by age and the elements. Looking at it, Thancred was immediately a bit leery about the wisdom of trying to enter it.

Gwen apparently felt the same, stopping to look the place over for a long, quiet minute before going around the left side.

Thancred suddenly started to wonder if he was intruding.

He pushed it aside, creeping around the side of the little…house?

Gwen crouched by two squat stones in the dirt, pulling up grasping and rambling weeds and brushing away detritus by the speckled light of the moon.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled with a cringe, loud compared to the chirping bugs. “I know it’s been a while. Things have been, ah,” she twisted a long, spindly vine in her fingers, “hectic lately. And… I’m sorry I don’t have flowers. I’ll try and bring some tomorrow.”

Thancred was _definitely_ intruding. He winced, easing back into a deeper swath of darkness.

Gwen didn’t look up, not hearing his careful steps nor sensing his presence.

He crept soundlessly away and returned to the Canopy. Nothing wrong with giving Gwen a bit of privacy, or letting her think she’d managed to slip away unnoticed for a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr
> 
> _Gguuuuuhhhh this felt like it took me forever @_@_


	13. Scour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set just post-4.0

The steam rising from the water served as a suitable warning that the bath was too hot, but Gwen didn’t care.

She stepped into the lightly perfumed water, sucking in a breath as the heat stung her skin. Too hot, but not so much that she couldn’t endure it. Rather than withdraw she pressed on, wincing as she stepped fully into the bath and sucking in another breath as she lowered herself down. Once she’d stilled and settled against the edge of the tub, water sloshing just below her collarbone, the the oppressive heat lost a bit of its scalding edge.

Though intense, the heat was precisely what she needed, and it immediately went to work, sinking into her tight, strained muscles. The drifting scent of lavender gently pushing her to relax and let her aching muscles embrace the warmth. Gwen propped her head against the edge of the tub and closed her eyes, breathing the soothing aroma and steadily willing every ilm of her to relax, or at least untense a little. 

The temperature became more tolerable the longer she stayed in the water, gradually sliding to a more comfortable warmth by the time she managed to fully relax. She breathed a sigh of relief, sinking down a little more until the water touched her chin.

It was so _nice _to have a moment to simply sit in a hot bath… she normally didn’t have the time for a bath at all, let alone lazing around and sitting idly in one. Given how busy she was, bathing typically meant fast, cold showers to both wash and wake herself up in the morning.

It was utterly quiet in the bathroom, and even, maybe in the wing of the Royal Palace her loaned room was in. She wondered what was going on in the other parts of the Palace, and what the others were doing. The place was _huge_, even moreso than it had looked from the outside. It was more than large enough for those scores of Imperial Troops when it had been occupied, and now proved to have ample space for the upper echelons of the Grand Companies, the leaders of Eorzea and the Scions in the wake of Ala Mhigo’s liberation.

Pulling herself back from the edge of sleep, Gwen sat up a little and ran her hands over her arms, tracing old scars and the lines of healing cuts and scrapes that had been mended with magic. It had certainly been a rough few days…

She eyed the rather extensive array of fragrant soaps and oils that lined the edge of the bath, giving off muted scents of vanilla and cream that tinged the lavender of the bathwater. She realized each one seemed to be untouched and brand new.

Gwen hummed to herself and wondered who had taken it upon themselves to supply such luxuries, and if they’d also been the one to ensure said luxuries found their way quietly into her bathroom. Looking over the fine bottles and delicately carved bars again, she couldn’t help wondering how expensive they were. 

It could be argued she’d earned a little bit of special treatment, what with freeing two countries and defeating both Zenos and Shinryu, on top of everything else…

…Even so she felt a little tingle of guilt as she took up one of the sweet-smelling bars and set about scouring salt and dust from her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_WHEEZE_  
_Jeeeeezums this was was hard for me for some reason. I just had no ideas @_@_  
_Yay for late submit days! lol_


	14. Jitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Contains an intense argument and yelling.
> 
> _8/10/20 -- I don’t like the the way I wrote this, but I do like the general premise and I do want Gwen and Thancred to have this general sort of argument, but I don’t like the way it ended up playing out here. I plan to rewrite it at some point. I’ll post a link to it whenever that happens. _

Gwen paced her room a few times, intermittently scribbling in her journal and haphazardly stuffing things in her pack while she tried to think. The sandwiches from the Exarch were half-eaten and the conversation she had with Ardbert was already half-forgotten, the spirit (wisely) choosing to give her space and privacy to sort herself out.

A letter from Cerigg, now pinned under one side of her journal, calling her back to Mord Souq ‘by fourth bell, if possible’ was what had spurred her into sudden action. 

She needed to talk to Thancred. Specifically, she needed to talk about Minfilia.

Gwen had known that since she first heard the way he scolded little Minfilia when they entered Il Mheg, and the notion had been reaffirmed after what she witnessed in his Echo.

They needed to talk, and the sooner the better. A time of relative calm and lifted spirits while they were all still bolstered by the success of returning night to Il Mheg was probably the ideal situation she could hope for. No one could be sure how long they’d have to rest while they figured out where to go next, though the Exarch would no doubt have a suggestion, and her idle time had already been cut short.

Despite her conviction, Gwen couldn’t help becoming a little bit jittery every time she thought about it. Knowing him, or what she knew of him five years ago –that stung and she almost winced– the conversation was almost guaranteed to wind up…passionate.

Gwen had meant to speak with Thancred after they’d successfully retrieved the crown from Dohn Mheg, when they’d taken the night to recover at Uriangier’s and the two of them finally had the chance for a bit of privacy. But when she’d gone to his room she’d been distracted by a dozen different things, one of them being his genuine relief that she was alive and well, which he’d mostly kept to himself until that point, and another being… well, him. 

Up until that point she’d thought herself recovered from those long moons of worry and loneliness, as seeing those she’d so dearly missed and the man she loved alive and well and running around on inane errands for pixies did wonders to ease the ache and fill in the void that had been hanging in her chest. 

But then they’d had their first moment alone together since he’d fallen unconscious in Ala Mhigo, and the point of her visit had started to fall apart. Thancred’s firm embrace and relieved little mumble had completely derailed her train of thought, completely at odds with the gruffness and scowls he’d been wearing all day. The soft, longing press of his mouth and grasp of his hands had made sure she never got it back again. 

She hadn’t forgotten, no, but a burst of selfishness and yearning of her own had pushed it all aside for a night. The thought still made her stomach twinge with guilt.

But then Gwen and Minfilia had gone out together on an errand for the Nu Mou and gotten their own chance to speak in private…

Well, after that unfortunate bit of insight, it was probably good Gwen hadn’t already talked with him. This wasn’t going to be the sort of conversation Thancred would want to have at all, let alone _twice_.

It wasn’t a conversation she was eager to have either -heavy and delicate and prickly as it was like to be- but she was generally better about that kind of thing. Being pushed and pulled into one task or another was part of being the Warrior of Light (and Darkness now, too, though she thought that title was a mouthful) and she’d learned to endure and move forward despite a few misgivings or a bit of irritation.

And, in a way, wasn’t the fact that neither of them wanted to have the conversation almost a sign that it _needed _to happen? 

Her pen, almost on its own, scribbled out the idea to perhaps talk with the twins or Uriangier, to ask about how Thancred and Minfilia had been before her arrival, or learn if they’d already attempted to broach the awkward subject and how far they’d gotten with it.

Gwen crossed it out. A bit of insight could be helpful, but it could also serve to cloud her head and make everything more tangled and thorny than it already was. No need to add ‘I’ve been talking to the others about you’ on top of everything.

Bells later, and nearing the time Cerigg had requested she meet him and the boy– Taynor, the letter said, in Mord Souq, Gwen had only managed to pick out the finer points of what she wanted to say to Thancred, though the exact phrasing was still eluding her. She hadn’t eaten another bite, she’d packed and unpacked her bag twice, and she’d nearly trod a ring into the floor. Her journal still lay open on her desk, packed twice and wrestled free both times so she could keep scribbling in it. She hadn’t seen Ardbert again, and she was both grateful to be able to think in peace and a little disappointed. Perhaps she could have talked it over with him first.

A knock at the door stopped her from mulling it all over any further, and she frowned at it for the interruption. She tipped her journal shut before answering the summons.

Thancred waited on the other side, leaning against the doorjamb. He looked tired in a way that wasn’t entirely related to travel on the road, and his expression lifted when he saw her.

Her heart’s instinctive happy skip was cut short by an anxious twist, the resulting spasm uncomfortable and almost painful. 

Well, so much for preparing any more.

She could put it off again. Just a little longer, just until she got back, and maybe she would have her thoughts more in order then…

Gwen thought about Thancred’s harsh tone at the border of Lydha Lran and the look of sad resignation that had accompanied Minfilia’s aching words when looked out at Lyhe Ghiah.

She pushed that jittery little thought away. No waiting.

Whatever expression Gwen was wearing, probably a mix of the myriad things buzzing around in her head, made one of Thancred’s brows lift and his smile dim slightly. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Gwen moved aside and waved him in, “not really.”

“Which is it?” he teased dryly, stepping inside.

Gwen took a slow breath as she pushed the door shut, “Not really, then,” willing her heart to slow and her thoughts to steady and straighten out.

“You’re leaving already?” She looked back to see Thancred regarding her bag with an incredulous stare. 

“I got a letter from a bounty hunter I met a few weeks ago,” Gwen explained. “He’s hunting a powerful sin eater and wants my help.”

“Right now?” He asked, a tinge of something disappointed in both his frown and his tone.

“As soon as possible, so before I go running off after another Lightwarden,” Gwen said apologetically, letting her shoulders slump with the confirmation. She wasn’t terribly eager to run off and leave him and the others behind, either. “Which means now.” She put on a rueful smile, “Busy as always, even here where no one knows me.” 

Thancred made a sound under his breath that might’ve been a sardonic chuckle, understanding but not pleased about it. He looked over her face, his own starting to grow pensive, “I take it that’s not all that’s on your mind.”

Gwen sighed, burying her fingers in her scarf to give them something to do. “No.”

She hesitated to speak again, not entirely sure where to start or how to phrase it. Her thoughts were puzzle pieces scattered all around, and she still hadn’t found the best way to put them all together.

As the silence stretched Thancred’s mouth turned down at one corner and his brows knit together, expression shifting to one that toed the line of suspicion. A look that came with wariness and walls.

Gwen’s mouth pulled slightly to one side and she fixed her weight on her feet.

Thancred’s expression shifted again, this time to something firmer and more stubborn that said he had a pretty good idea that she meant to scold or lecture him, and he was in no mood for either.

As if that was anything new.

Gwen took another slow breath, trying to push away that annoyed little snap and the other unpleasant things prickling around in her head. _Wait. You should wait. You’re already getting annoyed, _rolled around her thoughts, in and out of focus. She replied to his hardened expression with a patient tone, “I haven’t even said anything and you’re already scowling at me.”

A few moments passed and his expression softened somewhat, as who he was speaking to finally starting to weigh in on his instinctive defensiveness. He huffed and folded his arms, giving off a definite air of resignation despite his eased expression, “Fine. Go on, then.”

Gwen couldn’t help frowning. It had been a while since she was last confronted with his walls, at least so directly. _This isn’t the right time. Shouldn’t do this now. I’m about to leave, I’m already all worked up and he’s already putting up walls–_

“You know what I saw in the Echo,” she said anyway, only slightly carefully.

Thancred shifted on his feet and set his shoulders, as though physically enduring the words. “I’ve got a good idea, based on the look you were wearing when you came out of it.”

Gwen twisted her scarf. “So you know I felt what you felt then, in that moment.”

Thancred’s mouth bent, “Don’t presume to know what I–”

“I’m not,” Gwen cut him off firmly. It stung for him to jump straight to that kind of assumption after how much they’d talked about what she’d experienced in past Echoes, including all the things it allowed –or _forced_, rather– her to feel. “The only thing I’m presuming is that I’ve seen something you haven’t shared with anyone else. At least, not entirely.”

He shifted his jaw and glanced elsewhere, “You don’t know that.”

“I know you.” She reminded him. 

Thancred’s frown deepened, a hard edge creeping into his expression.

He would have explained that Minfilia had chosen not to come back, though Gwen wasn’t sure if he would have shared her reasoning. Only the bare minimum, if he was really pressed. And he definitely wouldn’t have admitted to his words, or his desperation, either.

_“What about **my **wishes?!” _Rang like a cracked bell and her heart twisted, both with the reverberation of his heartache and her own.

Gwen knew him well enough to know there was no point telling him she, at least partially, understood what he was feeling. Thancred didn’t want sympathy, especially when it was part of such an unruly tangle of emotions and questions as the one she’d been grappling with for days now.

She missed Minfilia, too. Everyone did. She’d thought herself at peace with the whole thing after all this time, for her own sake. But then, in the void between worlds, Gwen had seen her for just a moment, heard her voice, and that peace and acceptance had cracked like glass. And then she’d seen Thancred’s Echo…

It was all such a twelve-damned _mess_.

But for how twisted and knotted her head and heart might have been, Gwen had heard Minfilia’s decision that day in Nabaath Areng.

Much as it made old wounds ache, she agreed…mostly. At the very least, she understood. Understood that their Minfilia, of the Source, couldn’t bear to steal a life, especially a child’s, for her own sake.

The First’s Minfilia, the little girl who’d been born in the antecedent’s radiant shadow, deserved her own life. She deserved a _chance_. 

“And I know that day in Nabaath Areng, and everything after it, have been eating at you for years,” Gwen said heavily, voice calm even though her head was a knot of a million different thoughts and her heart was starting to skitter. 

Her chest ached, and she blamed the Echo.

“I’m _fine_.” Thancred’s voice was blunt and flat.

“I just want to talk,” Gwen insisted, doing her best to keep her tone even and calm despite the frustration creeping through her. He was never particularly open when it came to his emotions, beyond fondness, anyway, and he’d always been in the habit of literally and physically dodging topics he didn’t care to try and address, but he usually had a bit more patience, a bit more understanding, when she was the one to bring them up. He would always hear her out, at least, and not immediately shut her down. “To actually have a conversation, not stand here and talk _at _you while you scowl at me. Is that so much to ask?”

Thancred turned sharply, moving with heavy steps towards her desk as though he could just walk away from the conversation. She wondered if he would have gone for the door were she not standing in front of it. “My business is no concern of yours.” 

Gwen bristled, her patience and level-headedness both proving thinner and more feeble than she’d realized. His _business?_ So Thancred can drag her into conversations, can discuss her flaws and take apart _her_ issues even if she doesn’t want to, he can _steal her journal_ and _pry_ all he wants, but the moment she tries to do the same thing he gets surly and shuts down? _He_ doesn’t have to talk when _he_ doesn’t want to?

She tensed further, irritation hot and prickling in her head and on her skin. She blamed the Echo again, the emotions it pushed onto her always coming through far sharper and brighter than her own. She knew how to handle her own emotions well enough, but not someone else’s. It was so hard to keep a steady head when her own sadness or anger was suddenly amplified, doubled, reshaped with someone else’s almost as if it were her own. She hadn’t thought to try and ready herself to deal with the Echo and his heartache she’d experienced on top of everything else.

She threw away more than a bell of fretting, of thoughts and consideration of careful phrasing, her voice sharp and plain as irritation started to strain in her throat, “You’re hiding your feelings and tearing yourself apart, and Minfilia thinks she’s no better than a spare weapon.”

Thancred clenched his teeth and his hands curled into fists. He sent a hard look over his shoulder, something brittle and angry washing across his eyes. “Stay out of it, Gwen. You don’t know _anything _about what’s going on–”

“I know what she told me, and I know what I saw.” Gwen’s voice wavered slightly under the sharp look before a surge of hot, staticy anger steadied it and sharpened each syllable, “She said you only kept her close as a contingency because you can’t stand to be around her.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Thancred grated out, struggling to keep his voice from rising. Normally he was the one to keep the calmer tone whenever they had a little spat, but not this time. “I don’t need–”

Gwen pointed vaguely behind her, in the direction of Thancred’s room. “_She _isn’t _her_.”

His glare was sharp and cold like a chip of ice, face dark like a thunderstorm.

She shifted her feet, set her weight and held her ground. She’d faced down Primals and worse, she would _not _be cowed by Thancred’s glare, even though, at that moment it was far more intimidating than any eikon had been.

“She’s her own person,” Gwen told him, words short and clipped. 

“Guinevere.” Her name was a growl, a warning.

She’d struck a chord. “She’s not some sort of–”

“_Stop_.” 

“–second chance!”

“I know that!” Thancred nearly yelled, whatever scraps of patience he’d been clinging to apparently spent. The sudden timbre of his voice nearly drove her back a step. 

The loss of his temper fueled roiling frustration in her chest, dredging up months of anguish from the Source –unrelated but potent and still haunting her even now– to fan the flames. The words that landed on her tongue far too agitated to keep behind her teeth and too sharp to swallow, “Knowing isn’t good enough!” Gwen snapped back, just short of shouting. “Act like it! Act like you give a damn about her and not just–”

“Of course I _give a damn_!” Thancred snarled. “Everything I’ve done on this damned world I’ve done for her! I taught her everything! She barely knew how to take care of herself when I saved her from that godsdamned cage!”

“For her sake, or yours?!” Gwen shouted at him, belatedly wondering if the people all the way down in the lobby could hear them.

That apparently hit a sore spot because Thancred stiffened like he’d been struck. A split second later he stood straighter, shoulders back and set, his arms tensing, looking every bit as though he wanted to scream or hit something or both. He was _seething_, lip curled and eyes dark with something glacial and jagged that looked a lot like fury.

Gwen wasn’t sure when she squared her shoulders or clenched her fists, but she had. She knew it wouldn’t come to blows, it was _Thancred_, they wouldn’t actually _fight. _Yet the conviction behind those thoughts was weaker than she cared to admit. She’d just wanted to _talk_, for Twelve’s sake, how in the hell did they get _here_.

She managed not to shout, but just barely, “I’m not going to stand here and watch someone I care about suffer! I can’t just sit and watch you tear yourself apart and let a _child_ go on thinking–!”

“Don’t you _dare_,” Thancred snapped, voice dangerous and low like thunder, something his expression cracking. “You finally deign to _show up_ after all these years and you think you can _waltz _in here and–”

“Help!” Gwen yelled exasperatedly. She took a step forward, her posture making it a challenge, “I’m trying to help!”

“I don’t want your _help_!” Thancred roared, “I don’t _need_–!” He slammed his fist down onto her desk, the impact echoing around her room. The wood groaned and shuddered, dust falling free and the lamp and her journal trembling.

Gwen’s breath caught and she twitched with a barely suppressed reaction to jerk back.

The reverberating ‘_thud’_ dwindled to nothing and vanished, and the silence it left was behind utterly stifling.

Thancred was frozen, chest heaving. Something like shock pulled at his expression as he stared at her face, eyes wide while he processed the sudden quiet.

Gwen wasn’t sure what sort of expression she was making beyond the fact her eyes were wide and her whole body was tense, stopped just short of recoiling. Adrenaline surged through her veins and her heart was hammering against her ribs, skin and muscles prickling with nervous energy and desperation to move or fidget. 

It was a massive effort, but she kept still.

She’d expected him to get angry, though, admittedly, not _so _angry, especially not so _quickly_. It was a wound he’d been nursing since before he even came to the First, of course he’d get snappy when she poked it. She’d known that any attempt at discussing something so tender and guarded ran the risk of turning into an argument, but she hadn’t expected… 

Thancred shifted his gaze to his hand, studying the rigidity of his arm and the place where his knuckles were still pressed to the table.

His expression sobered in an instant.

Thancred’s arm relaxed and his fingers unclenched slowly, almost dazedly, as though he was struggling to believe he’d lost control of himself. He kept his eyes glued to the desk as he eased back a step, furtive and stiff like he was standing on ice that had just cracked under his feet. 

He hadn’t moved away from the desk, hand unfolding slowly as it dragged across the wood. He’d moved away –even further away, there was more than two yalms between them– from _her_.

It felt as though the air had been sucked out of the room, the world falling still and silent again.

Thancred almost looked up, hesitant, nervous, but stopped. Instead he turned his back to her, almost seeming to shrink as he leaned against the desk and pulled his injured hand out of sight. He muttered something she didn’t catch despite the near-unnerving silence.

_Probably broke his knuckles…_ The thought nudged the back of Gwen’s mind, and a little thread of sympathy pierced through the jittery, thorny haze of their argument.

Guilt crept up her throat. All of it needed to be said, she knew that, but not so harshly, and not thrown around like stones, either. They could have _talked _not _shouted_. Half of her anger had come from something older, lonelier, biggerness that had welled up and been pushed down while he and the others had slept and she’d been left alone. She didn’t even realize it still haunted her so strongly.

Gwen grappled with her thoughts, stifling nervous buzzing and knotting up frayed ends until her head had cleared a little. She lifted her hands to clutch at her scarf, a tinge of relief sliding down her arms and across her shoulders and easing the ramrod-straight set of her back. 

It was so quiet. Had it been this quiet before they’d started shouting at one another? Or was the outside world waiting with bated breath, unsure what to make of the sudden absence of raised voices?

Gwen looked at Thancred, trying not to let earlier sharp words and cold glares get in the way. There wasn’t any fight left in him, every last spark crushed under the weight of his outburst. Shame hung heavy on his bowed head and slumped shoulders, regret and weariness creeping along the slouch of his back.

He looked…defeated. 

Gwen approached carefully, almost like she was approaching a skittish animal. She wanted to think that sort of nervous caution was ridiculous, but the tension that filled every ilm of the room was thick as water, pushing back against her as she moved, so brittle that being too quick would cause something –she wasn’t sure what– to break.

She was sure he heard her, her steps light but quite audible, but he didn’t react to them. She chose to take that as a good sign. 

Thancred held his injured hand carefully and stared solemnly down at it, damaged fingers trembling faintly against his cradling palm in small, painful spasms. He shied away from her as she drew closer, though the desk stopped him from getting far. He tilted his head away to avoid her gaze, a fall of pale hair shielding his eyes and hiding his face, though in doing so missed her hands reaching for him.

She delicately rested her hands around his, feeling him tense and twitch at the touch. His gloves obscured most of his hands, but she could see his knuckles were slightly misshapen and his third finger was trembling. That was enough to confirm her suspicions, a slight wince tightening her features,

Gwen whispered an incantation and drew on the air around them, readying to mend the damage the table had (rightly) inflicted.

She took a slow breath, addressing his hands when she murmured, “All that is to say.”

Thancred’s breath hitched, hands tensing beneath hers.

“That I’m… worried about you,” the magic started to take effect and his fingers stopped trembling, “and the toll this is taking. On both of you. You’re both hurting, that’s plain enough, and… I admit I hardly know Minfilia, but even so she’s still willing to be open with me.”

Fabric rustled, giving away when Thancred shifted his weight. Whether he’d done it out of nervousness, discomfort or something else, she wasn’t sure.

“But I do know you. And I know you’re struggling to deal with,” she lifted one shoulder in a small shrug, “a lot, and I _think_ you’re not handling it very well. You don’t know what the future holds, no one does, so you don’t know if you’re prepared for whatever could happen. I think you’re trying to prepare for the worst, like always, even though it means…walls. I can’t say I blame you, but I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it, either.” Gwen paused, re-gathering her focus when it started to fade, “But you already know that.”

Thancred made a quiet sound that wasn’t disagreement.

“I know it’s been a while, but,” she sagged a little, the gulf five years between them and a few certain comments still stinging, “just know that I’m here. For everyone, and for Minfilia, but for you, too. Always. Time and harsh words doesn’t change that. Never has, never will.” The light winked out, cracked bones and abrasions mended and bruised muscles soothed. She leaned against him so lightly her side barely pressed to his, her voice gentle and thick with emotion, “I’m not saying you have to tell me everything, neither of us were ever completely transparent, I’m just asking you to… Let me help. When I can.”

Gwen lifted her hands off of his but didn’t pull them away entirely, not wanting to withdraw, to retreat, while they were still in such a precarious place. 

She felt tired suddenly, like a cup that had been poured out. Getting angry, especially yelling, always drained her, proving almost more exhausting than all the fighting she has to do day in and day out. There, in that moment, it left her extremely sapped and tired. She very nearly wanted to nap.

She didn’t feel _better_ by any means, in fact she almost felt _worse_. She felt _spent_, and a bit hollow besides. She felt like a cup that had been dumped out.

Thancred’s mended fingers twitched, purposefully this time, and slowly flexed. He turned his hand to loosely, almost tentatively, curl his fingers around hers. Weight settled lightly on her head, his side pressing back against hers.

His whole demeanor was quiet now, withdrawn and subdued as though he both mistrusted himself and his emotions and was nervous about moving or being more vocal lest he lose control again, even briefly. He seemed like he was waiting for some sort of repercussion for lashing out like he had.

“…I’ll consider it,” he mumbled against her hair, quiet and withdrawn like a secret, “and everything you’ve said.” 

Of course he didn’t agree, or give even a mildly-definite answer. It was so unsurprising, so perfectly like him, that it almost made her feel better.

A bell chimed somewhere outside. Responsibility and duty cracked through her thoughts like the blare of an alarm tore through a dream.

Gwen sighed.

Thancred translated dully, “You have to go.”

“Yes,” she muttered, making no attempt to move away.

“…Do you _have _to?” he asked quietly, with a tone that said he already knew the answer but hoped he was wrong. 

Gwen hesitated, trying to gauge the tone of his voice. “I…” She considered, debated, and sighed again. They needed time, anyway. “Yes.”

He deflated slightly, humming a sound of understanding under his breath. He gently squeezed her hand and shifted his weight, pulling his hands away without further protest.

Gwen leaned into him for another long moment, counting seconds, and then pulled away and trudged over to her bag. She hefted it, fiddling with the closures and absently wondering if she had everything.

Thancred moved away from her desk, considering the door with a certain amount of disfavor. “When will you be back?” 

“I’m not sure.” The attempt at regular conversation didn’t quite feel awkward. “I shouldn’t be more than a day or two.”

He hummed vaguely as she pulled the straps over her shoulders and settled the weight on her back. 

Oh, she still needed–

Gwen looked back at her desk. She saw only her lamp and a few books she’d borrowed from the Cabinet of Curiosity about Norvandt’s plants.

Oh, she’d already packed her journal. She wasn’t surprised it had slipped her notice, given how frazzled and anxious she’d been and how many times she’d repacked her bag.

Gwen turned for the door and glanced at Thancred, who was standing quietly by them like he was waiting.

She moved over to him, still more carefully than strictly necessary. He stood a little straighter, waiting until she was well within arm’s reach before letting his arms drop to his sides. 

Gwen reached up, brushing the backs of his fingers against his cheek. “You’ll still be here?”

Thancred turned his head slightly, grazing his lips against one finger, “I will.”

The sweet little gesture didn’t inspire the happy, light feeling she’d hoped for, but it did lift her spirit a little. That was something, at least.

They stepped out together, Thancred ducking his chin and bidding, “Be safe, dove,” before turning for his room.

Gwen sighed, combing her fingers through her bangs.

Well, hopefully it would all be settled, and maybe a little better, in a few days. Time and space would give them room to think. And clearly they both needed it. She started towards the stairs, ready to dodge any glances sent her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Thanks @rhymingteelookatme (on tumblr) for the suggestions and reading it over for me :D :D :D_  
_I DON’T LIKE WRITING FIGHTS. IT’S HARD. UGH_  
__  
<s>Oh hey where’d her journal go I wonder if someone fucking pocketed it REALLY DUDE?</s>  
  
_SUBMITTING AT THE LAST MOMENT FUUUUUUU—-_


	15. Obeisant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mild end-of-5.0 spoilers

Gwen didn’t mind not standing out, being no more than an ordinary adventurer, or even an ordinary Scion. She wanted to be helpful, to be useful, and she didn’t need to be noticed or revered to do that. For the most part.

Sometimes merely being ‘an adventurer’ wasn’t enough, as some situations were considered too difficult to entrust to one without some sort of reputation or experience to back them up. Occasionally the bland title got her a few upturned noses and frowns from those who solved problems by throwing fistfuls of gil, and mercenaries, at them. 

She didn’t much mind that, honestly. She didn’t care for the company of those with that sort of mindset. And if people wanted some sort of proof that she could handle whatever task they wished to give her, jumping through a few hoops and running a few errands tended to be proof enough.

Gwen was perfectly comfortable just going about her business and being part of the crowd. She didn’t mind taking a job and surpassing expectations and leaving again. She just wanted to _help_.

Everything started to change around the time she first ran into Thancred. From there it seemed to spiral out of control, and she very quickly stumbled from little errands and odd jobs into directly aiding the Sultansworn. Through all of that she wound up helping the Sultana, which earned her an –apparently unprecedented– invitation to a royal banquet with the Sultana and Ul’dah’s elite.

Gwen dazedly wondered if anyone in attendance had the slightest inkling that she hadn’t dreamed of anything going the way it had, and she’d only gotten involved at the start of the whole thing because Momodi had thought her trustworthy.

Probably not.

As if her head hadn’t been spinning from all of that, then she had the honor of being the Flame General’s emissary, which sent her all over Eorzea.

The busy, battle-filled jaunt around the world culminated in her being asked to join the Scions.

And then she killed Ifrit. Alone.

A few days later a recruitment officer from each of the Grand Companies was waiting outside her door. She hadn’t told anyone about the Primal, had barely mentioned it to the other Scions, but Tataru and the rumor mill had handled that for her. 

Then she slew Titan. Then she aided Haurchefant and Lord Francel and recovered the Tiny Bronco for Cid. Then she slew Garuda…

The list kept growing, and her name along with it.

After she defeated Gaius and saved Thancred in the Praetorium, people started calling her the Warrior of Light, and suddenly she was a hero.

Her anonymity very nearly shrank with every bell. Someone would recognize her and point her out to others who didn’t, some of them rushing up to express their gratitude or ask questions or shake her hand. Suddenly people who sought to speak with her were obeisant rather than simply polite or personable, like she’d been used to. Some went so far as to bow or curtsey when they spoke with her, even as Gwen strenuously tried to tell them it wasn’t necessary.

She’d never even dreamed of what it would be like to be so venerated, and then it suddenly happened.

It was touching, really, to know that she’d helped so many and done so much good. It was emboldening and empowering to know so many had so much faith in her. People found hope, in one form or another, in the Warrior of Light and her deeds. People lived better lives when the world wasn’t so dire, and even the most dire of situations seemed a little less bleak with the knowledge that there was a living legend around to make it all right again.

And the sheer weight of those expectations, of the starstruck looks, the hopeful cheers, the requests for aide, was so unbelievably, indescribably _heavy_. 

So many people expected her to be… _something_. To be a legend, a hero, an expert, to be perfect somehow, everyone had a different thing.

People all across Eorzea recognized her, but she came to learn that precious few actually knew her _name_. To a great many people, at least outside of the Scions and a handful of friends, she wasn’t Gwen anymore. She was the Warrior of Light. 

Gwen would arrive somewhere and people would know who she was before she introduced herself. They would already have inflated expectations because they knew her reputation and had heard tale of her heroic accomplishments. Some people went so far as to think that enough stories and rumors were a passable substitute for an introduction or conversation, acting as though they’d known her for years when, in fact, they were meeting for the first time. 

And when Gwen arrived, people knew things were serious, that the situation was dire, and that they were in trouble. Because why else would the Warrior of Light show up, right? The Warrior of Light was a hero and a problem solver, and no one needed either if there was no heroic problem to solve. A hero like that, who fought Primals and liberated countries, didn’t do odd jobs or small tasks, surely.

But, despite all that, everything would be alright. Because the Warrior of Light, Liberator of Doma, slayer of Nidhogg, Savior of Ishgard was on their side. And that meant the problem was practically solved, didn’t it?

No one considered that Warrior of LIght was still Gwen. Guinevere Ashe. A _person_.

People make mistakes. They lose their patience, they get overwhelmed, they get tired and hurt. 

Sometimes people grow weary of seeing faces alternatively brighten and darken when they walk into a room. 

Sometimes they start to feel a certain sort of way about being the first, and only, solution to every problem, especially when they aren’t given much say in the matter. 

Sometimes their best isn’t enough. Sometimes they lose.

The families of the dead, of the ones Gwen couldn’t save, didn’t want to hear that. They didn’t want a _person _who could only do their best, they wanted _the hero _that could fix everything. A towering reputation and exaggerated tales didn’t give much comfort to the mourning or the dead.

But the majority of people didn’t even seem to consider that. They didn’t want to think about loss, about the holes left behind, they wanted to look forward, to the new futures that the Warrior of Light unraveled with each victory.

If Gwen were in their position, she probably wouldn’t have thought about that stuff either. It was a terribly grating and heavy thing to have riding one’s conscience.

It was so much easier to not disappoint people, to not let anyone down, when they didn’t expect anything of her. When they thought she was only an adventurer with a name not worth remembering, who had maybe had experience but maybe not.

All she could do was try her hardest, so…she did. What else could she do if refused to stand aside or sit idly by, after all.

And people continued to bow and cheer and sang her praises, and she acted like that lifted and bolstered her mood and didn’t, even slightly, sit too heavily on her thoughts.

Gwen tried, with varying degrees of success, to explain her mindset to her friends in the instances they noticed her discomfort. They, at least, remembered that she was a person, though that didn’t mean they didn’t hold her to a higher standard.

They understood, but only so much. The Scions had been rather abruptly thrust out of the shadows themselves, though it was the organization, rather than the individual members, that was receiving most of the attention. Her friends could understand and empathize with how crushing the weight of responsibilities and lives could be, and they could at least sympathize with the notion that an overabundance of attention and praise was both intrusive and bothersome. 

But at the same time there was a disconnect, a gap, that Gwen couldn’t quite cross with just words. Even Thancred and his knack for insight fell a bit short in that regard.

It wasn’t until they’d each witnessed firsthand the trials of such a title, be it when they were delayed and stopped by a dozen different people as they tried to cross a city with her, or seeing her cringe when someone would call out her title like her name, or watching people who didn’t know her crowd too close or speak too personally as if they weren’t strangers, that her friends really started to grasp and appreciate just how overwhelming it all could be.

It had been so odd, so _liberating_, to walk around Norvandt utterly anonymous, receiving only polite smiles and nods when she caught someone’s eye in the street or entered a shop. Being the Exarch’s friend meant she wasn’t utterly without clout, but that bit of information was something she had to –_got_ to– share on her own, because people didn’t already know or immediately assume. 

No one looked at her and immediately knew who she was. There were no rumors and stories she had to live up to when she was literally brand new to the world.

While definitely strange, partially because of the abruptness, it had been wholly wonderful. Gwen clung to it desperately, feigning ignorance as best she could when people rejoiced and wondered aloud at the gradual return of the night. The people she interacted with and helped along the way remembered her only for what she’d done for them, for being helpful and kind, not for being the amazing hero who did the impossible. 

And her friends had willingly played along, speaking in the vaguest terms and downplaying what they could on the occasions they, themselves, didn’t go unnoticed.

Even when Chai-Nunz had demanded, utterly flabbergasted, who she and the Scions were and how they could so easily call people from all across Norvandt to help with his giant Talos, they’d all said the same thing: Adventurers of no import.

Of course it didn’t last. Gwen knew it wouldn’t. 

But she deeply appreciated that the people of the Crystarium had allowed her the false anonymity even when who and what she was had become so painfully obvious. 

With that in mind, the resurgence of reverence and unnecessarily obeisant gestures wasn’t quite so stifling. 

In the beginning, anyway. Beyond that was something she’d only learn with time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Did I lose the plot? I think I lost the plot. BUT I THREW THE PROMPT WORD IN TWICE, SO CLOSE ENOUGH EH?_  
_NGL didn’t even know what the heckin’ word meant when I first read it._  
_It got more rambly than I intended, but I still like how it came out :D_
> 
> _Sometimes the WoL just wants to be a regular person, mang._


	16. Wilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after Jitter

Gwen materializes in the Crystarium’s aetheryte plaza and, despite the uncomfortable feeling twisting in her stomach and ghosting over her skin, sighs with relief. The little motion knocks loose a bit of dust and grit, though not enough to make much of a difference.

Sand is everywhere, _in_ everywhere, thanks to the sandstorm that kicked up as she, Cerigg and Taynor returned to Mord Souq. She pities that they had to stay behind, partially out of need to continue their search for clues, partially due to their lack of anima. It’s fortunate for them, then, that the residents of the desert are well versed in how to protect themselves from such turns of the weather.

When Gwen last glimpsed them through blustery haze of grit and dust, they’d been ducking into one such shelter.

But gripes about sand, and attempts to rid herself of it, could both wait. As could whatever news or requests had undoubtedly accumulated in her brief absence.

Her journal hadn’t been in her bag, something she’d discovered only a few bells into her trip to the desert, when she’d gone to retrieve it. When a cursory search didn’t cause it to turn up, her composure had started to slip. She’d turned her bag inside out and searched everywhere, Taynor and Cerigg had even helped and retraced her steps with her, but it was nowhere to be found. 

Gwen immediately makes a beeline for the Pendants, moving just below a run with her eyes scouring the street, and all but tosses her gil at the aetheryte attendant. She’ll feel bad for that later, when she’s less distracted.

She could have _sworn _she packed it, she hadn’t seen it on her desk–

“Gwen?” A familiar voice calls behind her.

–but that was where it should have been if it wasn’t in her pack, because she’d been writing in it and–

“Gwen!”

She tosses a look over her shoulder, catching sight of white hair and a white coat in her peripheral vision. Rather than stopping she waves for him to follow and turns her gaze back to the street.

A moment later Thancred catches up to her, his long gait easily keeping pace with hers. “You’re in quite a rush,” he points out conversationally.

“My journal wasn’t in my bag when I got to Mord Souq,” Gwen replies, brow furrowed as she continues to scour the streets. She knew, if her journal had tumbled from her bag as she ran to the aetheryte, that the chances of it still being where it fell were slim to the point of near-nonexistence, but going back along the same route and looking along the way couldn’t hurt.

There’s a pause. “I take it you thought it would be.”

“I could’ve sworn I’d grabbed it, but, ah,” Gwen makes a mildly frustrated gesture, starting down some steps. “I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. I packed and unpacked my bag a few times, and by the end I lost track of what was in it.”

Another pause that stretches on for longer. “…’A few’ times?”

“Twice,” she admits. Embarrassment is there but far away, her mind too preoccupied running in circles, trying to come up with what to do next if searching the street should prove fruitless.

There’s always the chance she’d left it in her room. But she could have sworn…

“Being thorough?” he drawls.

Gwen shoots him a pouty look to find he’s also searching, eyes steadily moving about the street. The sight lifts her mood a little. “I was anxious and it was something to do.”

“Anxious?”

“Well, I,” they part like a river around two people who stopped to chat and then come back together again, “I was thinking a lot.”

“Perhaps too much?” Thancred is apparently content to chat while they look.

She tosses a hand in a vague, unconcerned gesture, “Maybe. And I was writing, too. So maybe I didn’t pack it, but I didn’t see it on my desk when I checked.” If her hair wasn’t braided she’d be pulling on it right now. 

Surely it’s in her room, right? Where else could it– She cuts that question off and pushes it away. It wouldn’t go anywhere good. But she’d checked her desk, where it should have been, before she left and it hadn’t been there.

“About what?”

“About–”

Their argument and all of the worrying and reconsidering and agonizing she’d done beforehand shoves out from beneath the all-consuming desperation to find her journal, dislodging her train of thought in the process. 

Gwen slows, suddenly feeling winded.

Thancred slows as well, a curious look on his face.

She stops.

He does too.

The air feels thicker suddenly, and the buzz of the crowd is farther away. Suddenly it feels like they’re somewhere else, by themselves, rather than off to one side of a busy street. 

Gwen chews the corner of her lip. All of her spare time with Taynor and Cerigg had been spent examining and reexamining that argument. She’d even gotten their perspectives on a few things via allusions and excessive hypotheticals that ensured Thancred’s anonymity.

Of course she hadn’t forgotten about the whole thing. But her priorities had arranged and rearranged themselves a few times over their days apart, and at the end ‘get out of the sandstorm’ had been firmly in the lead with the gnawing anxiety of her lost journal snapping its heels. She’d then let that become her primary concern because, even if she wasn’t thinking about it, the latent knowledge that her journal was lost had been gnawing at her, ceaseless and distracting. She didn’t have much space in her head for even a casual conversation, let alone reconciling. 

She hadn’t expected anyone to be waiting for her… Much like how she hadn’t expected Thancred to knock on her door a few days ago.

“I, ah…” _Should’ve waited. I already felt guilty about putting it off once, and then I worked myself up about the whole thing, and I was distracted by a million things. I spent as much time getting tied up in hypothetical arguments as I did putting my thoughts together and figuring out where my head was at, so my thoughts were a jumbled mess. I was annoyed and impatient with myself, and that turned into me getting as snappy as him, and then it all turned into a fight._ The words run under her tongue and down her throat, knotting in her chest. _‘Should’… There really isn’t a ‘should’. I _could_ have waited. And… well, maybe should have too, but only so it would’ve gone more smoothly, not because that would have made it work out. Waiting wouldn’t have guaranteed a different outcome, only how we got there. There’s no way to know for sure. I shouldn’t have started such an important, sensitive conversation with the expectation that one talk would cause some sort of epiphany or paradigm shift, waiting or not. He’s stubborn, I know that, and losing my patience made everything worse._

“Dove.” Thancred’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts, and she finds him studying her with a thoughtful look. “I assume you’re thinking about our,” one of his brows lifts slightly, and his expression twists like he’d just taken a bite of something bitter, “‘discussion’ the other day?”

Of course he knew. Five years was a long time, but not too long that he couldn’t read her, apparently. 

Gwen’s gaze flicks aside and then back, and she shrugs.

His expression softens and his voice quiets, “I do hope you haven’t gone two days thinking it was your fault.”

“I’m the one who started it,” she reminds him, tone hovering awkwardly around the edge of joking in an attempt at levity.

One corner of his mouth ticks up for a fraction of a second, then his expression slides into something more pensive and collected.

The air between them no longer felt quite so stifling, but it wasn’t calm and relaxed either.

Thancred’s expression draws inward slightly before he opens his mouth. A moment later he closes it without speaking. 

A few seconds pass, the two of them standing a few fulms apart and simply looking at one another. He finally says, “You started a conversation, or at least tried to. _I_ started a fight. One of those is far more ignoble than the other.”

Technically correct, though there are a few arguments to be made about purposefully starting conversations about sensitive topics. She keeps it to herself for the moment, they could fight for blame after they’d cleared the air.

Looking at him now, no longer distracted by her desperate searching, Gwen realizes that Thancred looks… worn out. Faint shadows hang under his eyes, and there’s something rigid and uneasy in the way he’s holding himself.

He’s most of a yalm away, too, rather than standing right next to her.

Gwen blinks, lips pursing slightly. When…? Has he been that far away this whole time?

Taking the change in her expression as agreement, Thancred continues, “You had concerns and tried to address them, rather than confining them to your own mind or your journal. If I recall correctly, I had asked you to do just that, even had a little chat about it, before,” he nods meaningfully towards the Crystal Tower, “all of this started.”

Gwen picks at sand and grit off her clothes to give her hands something to do. She’s a little surprised, and pleased, he remembers that. “I remember. And I remember saying I’d try.” His request to be more open, to talk more, had played a bit of a role, it’s true. But not enough of one for that whole mess to be called ‘his fault’.

His eyes slide to the side and then down, his expression pulling further inward until it very much resembled a look of consternation.

Thancred lifts a hand in a request for patience just as Gwen opens her mouth again. 

She debates for a moment before folding her arms loosely and waiting. 

Taking turns, in a sense, would make all this go more smoothly than interrupting one another or putting word’s in each others’ mouths. Full thoughts would make more sense than half-finished ones. Proper listening would do both of them more good than merely waiting for their chance to speak.

Thancred takes a slow breath and smooths his expression into something more mild and collected, gaining a certain air of resolve along the way. “You tried to speak with me, to have a conversation. I do think there were more graceful ways to approach it, but still, you made an effort to be straightforward and plain with your concerns. And I dismissed you out of hand before you’d said so much as two words. When you pressed the issue, I let my emotions get the better of me. I turned it into an argument, and then a fight, and,” he half-cringes, “I lost my temper.”

She keeps the little burst of half-formed words behind her teeth, as the look on his face says he’s got more to say. She waits, rubbing cloth and grains of sand between her fingers.

“There’s no excuse for it, and I don’t intend to try and make one. I won’t let it happen again.” He lets out a heavy breath, sagging a little, and drags his gaze up to meet hers, “I’m sorry, Gwen.”

A million words clatter around in her head, some clicking together out of order and others knotting up and crumbling like sand. Soon her head is full all over again, mostly with sand. 

Thancred looks vaguely expectant, and a bit nervous, maybe, but he seems content to wait as long as she needs.

How does someone respond to that? What is she supposed to say? What _should_ she say?

Gwen’s expression shifts and bends, eyes moving over the distance between them and his rigid posture. “Is that why you’re all the way over there?”

Thancred blinks, glancing down at the space he’s left between them. He shifts his weight and folds his arms, “I thought you might appreciate space,” he says, slightly awkwardly.

Gwen’s mouth pulls to one side and she tilts her head slightly. A few words and threads of thought come out of the sand. “I’m not angry, you know. A little frustrated, yes, but not angry. Or intimidated, or… anything else like that.”

Thancred lowers his head slightly, looking somehow both relieved and not.

Gwen breathes in, chest only the slightest bit tense, and when she exhales some of the sand goes with it. The effort unearths a few more thoughts, though they’re tangled up and thorny. “I… Being honest, I don’t regret bringing all of that up,” Thancred’s expression is unreadable, and she tries not to think about it, “but I’m sorry for how I went about it. I lost my temper, too. It takes two to fight.”

His mouth bends with a frown that doesn’t –quite– look like disagreement.

“You’re right that… There were better ways to go about trying to broach the subject, and better ways to approach the whole thing in general. Jumping straight in isn’t exactly a delicate approach.”

His eyes slip aside again, expression shifting to one of slightly-begrudging contemplation. “Starting off with my ears blocked up certainly didn’t make it any easier.”

She dips her chin, conceding the point. “Trying bull through and badger you into talking isn’t delicate, either.”

“…Fair.”

“I don’t regret,” she pauses, “bringing it all up. And I don’t regret… what I was _trying _to say. But I am sorry for how I said it, and for losing my patience and yelling. I just made everything worse, and I… What I said wasn’t fair to you, either. I’m sorry.”

“I raised my voice first,” Thancred points out quietly. “And I was hardly being charitable with my words. Everyone’s patience has its limits; even after five years I should know yours.”

Something light, if feeble, pokes out of the sand. She regards him with a mildly-annoyed look, like the one he’s given her so many times. “Is this what it feels like to have the person you’re trying to apologize to apologize right back?”

After a moment to process it, his eyes lighten a little. “That habit of yours, you mean? A bit.”

Gwen huffs through her nose in mock affront, and his eyes lighten a little more.

The silence that follows is more comfortable, though still tinged with uneasiness, still a little fragile.

“You’ll think about what I said, right? Er, rather, what I…was trying to say?” Gwen asks, even though asking makes her heart skitter nervously. “Later, I mean.”

Thancred breathes a sigh that sounds weary, almost long-suffering. “Yes.”

“Particularly the part about me being here for you and wanting to help?”

His expression softens. “…Yes.”

The sand begins to disappear, knots start loosening. Gwen steps closer and stops, tilting her head slightly to ask if that was alright.

Thancred hesitates, then drops his arms. He steps forward when she does, and they meet almost in the middle.

Gwen lifts a hand to his cheek, brushing her thumb under the shadow beneath his eye. “You look tired.”

He doesn’t answer for a moment, leaning into her touch. “I was thinking a lot.”

“Perhaps too much?” she offers with a slight smile.

Thancred sags like a wilting flower, leaning down to rest his forehead against hers. He closes his eyes, looking a little relieved but mostly weary. “I _am_ sorry, Gwen,” he murmurs, soft and heavy. “Truly.”

“I know.” She brushes her thumb back and forth across his cheek and his expression shifts more towards relieved. “I am too.” 

He doesn’t answer, and his expression doesn’t change.

She adds, “I forgave you before I even reached the aetheryte.”

Thancred sighs and wilts a little more, almost like he was disappointed. “Of course you did.”

“Hoping I’d be mad?” Gwen asks mutedly, only half-teasing. She knows how he can be. “Maybe… not speak to you? Or rant at you, or something?” 

“Not _hoping_,” Thancred mutters unconvincingly, lifting a hand to rest on hers.

She tutts at him and he rolls his eyes. 

Thancred frowns suddenly and lifts his head, turning to send a scowl over his shoulder.

Gwen abruptly remembers they’re on the side of a busy street, out in public. Her cheeks starts burning. She rubs her other hand over her face in a futile attempt to wipe the redness away. 

She feels sand and grit scrape her skin.

Sandstorm, need a bath, looking for her journal. She says quietly, “We still haven’t found my journal.”

Thancred huffs and mutters under his breath, squeezing her hand. “Right then, let’s keep looking.”

They found her journal in her room, facedown on the floor in front of her desk. Neither of them speculated about how it got there, choosing instead to be relieved it wasn’t lost.

It, and a few other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Somehow I don’t think that last line is gonna imply what I wanted it to. Ah well. I was running out of time @_@_
> 
> _The whole thing didn’t go quite like I wanted, and this is a definite case of “fuuuck throw the prompt word in”, I think. Maybe? Eh. BUT I got it written, and there are definitely parts I like! Might rework it someday to get out the kinks, but it’s p good :B_
> 
> _Talking it out is 10/10, would recommend._
> 
> _SUBMITTING AT THE LAST MINUTE AGAIN WOOOO_


	17. Radiant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> idk when this is lol

Thancred’s dreams thin and melt into darkness, a modicum of awareness trickling back and tugging at him.

Something is…missing. He doesn’t have enough wits about him to know what, sleep pulling too strongly at him.

Thancred moves his head, feeling a pillow beneath it. He moves an arm and shifts his shoulders, feeling the drag of sheets and a brush of displaced air. Vague color presses against his eyelids, just soft enough to ignore even though it makes the darkness behind his eyes a few shades lighter than it should be. 

He reaches out beside him, hand extending lazily into an empty void. Eventually it drops, landing on a soft bed, pooled sheets just warm to the touch.

That’s…not right, is it? He isn’t sure, and his thoughts are still thick and sticky.

Thancred claws for his consciousness, dragging himself out of the clutches of sleep bit by bit.

Normally he can wake faster than this, be up and alert in an instant, but now his body pleasantly lethargic, and his mind clear and frustratingly at ease. 

The darkness thins and parts as he drags his eyes open, color bleeding into his sight. His head weighs a dozen ponze when he hauls it up from the pillow to peer at his surroundings.

The room is dark but for a swath of pale yellow light falling through partially-opened curtains, bright enough to highlight the shapes of the room’s sparse furnishings 

A figure stands by the window draped in his coat, one hand on the thick curtains meant to block out the light. They’re still, paused in the process of either opening or closing the curtains.

Guinevere.

She’s radiant in the morning light, growing brighter the longer he looks at her.

Thancred’s heart flips, and he suddenly wonders if he’s dreaming. The formless light illuminates her and motes of dust in the air in just such a way that she looks nearly ethereal, almost like one of the fey from Il Mheg.

His mind stutters between the sight and the groggy fog that’s addling his thoughts. He can’t remember if they fell asleep together, or if he’d dreamed that, too.

His coat completely engulfs her lithe frame like a large robe, sleeves hanging loosely on her arms. He free hand holds the front closed against the latent cool of the room, absently shifting and rubbing the fabric. Her sleep-tousled hair falls loosely around her shoulders, gray streaks glowing gold in the new light, her bangs shading her half-lidded eyes. Her features are easy and soft with drowsiness, and she’s wearing a small, private smile as she watches the new morning.

Thancred’s heart does an odd little twist, hopeful but a little trepidatious. He’s missed her so terribly since arriving on the First, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’s dreamed of…

Her name curls on his tongue, familiar and tempting. He props himself up on one elbow, watching her through mostly-closed eyes and willing it all to be real.

His voice is thick and quiet, mostly from sleep, “Gwen?”

She turns, surprised, and his heart does another hopeful skip. 

He curls his free hand beckoningly, holding it out for her to take. _Is this real? Gods I hope so… _

How long have they been apart? Five years and a few moons, at least. Up until some time in the third year he’d kept track almost down to the day, though he never said so.

No, no, wait, she’s on the First. She arrived and brought the night, she’s why there’s a sunrise glittering in her eyes. 

But she looks so…

Gwen smiles and releases the curtains, the bottom of his coat parting around her bare legs and feet with every step towards him. Her voice is quiet and low, far more coherent than his, “Did I wake you?” 

Thancred shakes his head, a little dazed, “No.” He half-wonders if the light is coming from her or the outside, the glow clinging to her skin and hair even after she moves away from the window.

Her smile curls slightly, pleased, and a dozen light, fluttering things crowd his head. _I’m not… I can’t be dreaming? Can I? _

She pauses at the edge of the bed, glancing away and then down at his coat. A flush blooms across her cheeks, her smile tilting a little coyly before she glances back up.

Anticipation prickles across his skin like static, leaving his mouth suddenly dry and his hands itching to touch. He remembers he’s supposed to be charming and witty and seductive and pins on a lopsided smile. “I have to be dreaming.”

Gwen laughs, something flattered and slightly incredulous flickering across her face, “Dreaming?” 

Thancred gestures towards her and grins lazily, “Dreaming or blessed, and there’s no way in all seven hells the latter will ever come to pass.”

She laughs, sweet and genuine, and shakes her head fondly, ribbons of gray and brown dancing around her shoulders. “Is it because I’m standing here in your coat?”

He smiles approvingly, “That’s part of it.” He can tell her about the ethereal radiance bit later.

She rolls her eyes, “_Please_. You’re so…” she trails off, apparently at a loss for words, and settles for giving him a warm, adoring look he can’t possibly deserve.

“So…?” Thancred teases, gaze wandering suggestively down his coat. 

“Ridiculous,” she says with another little laugh. 

“If you come here,” he pushes himself upright and curls his hand again, “I could know for sure.”

The pink on her cheeks deepens to red even as she struggles to maintain her coy smile, “That simple, is it?” 

A thrill surges through him, heat following close behind and racing southward. His voice comes out low and promising, “Quite.”

She fumbles for a reply and gives up, and he resists the urge to chuckle.

The mattress creaks and sinks when Gwen leans her knee onto it, her hand (not the one holding her coat shut, regrettably) reaching for his.

Thancred’s hand twitches, almost nervously, as she reaches for it. A pit of disappointment starts to open under him at the same time as his heart is beating a high, hopeful rhythm in his chest.

Her hand presses against his, her palm a familiar soft-roughness, like old leather, her fingers as calloused as his. 

The contact sends a jolt along his arm that leaves goosebumps in its wake.

Thancred releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Gwen lets him draw her in, whispering his name and shedding his coat before they tangle together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Quick question, why is ending stuff so hard_
> 
> _Ah well. I still like how this came out :D and it didn’t get crazy long!_
> 
> _one of these days I’ll write real smut just you wait_


	18. Bisect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing a bed huehuehuehue

They bicker briefly about directions before deciding to trust Thancred’s instincts. After all, he’s a native La Noscean.

Nevermind he spent his younger years in Limsa Lominsa and the next dozen or so in Sharlayn, so his knowledge of Upper La Noscea’s winding, rocky paths may or may not be less than stellar.

After an unnecessarily circuitous route and a bit of doubling back they stumble into Aleport in full darkness, the sky thick with stars overhead.

But they’ve made it, at least.

Gwen decides to put off giving Thancred a hard time until the morning, as they’re both exhausted. The innkeep has one room left and they don’t ask many questions about it. 

She barely has a hand on the door before Thancred rests one on her shoulder, “Settle in, I’ll see about food,” and then he’s gone.

Which means she confronts the slightly-confined quarters and single bed alone, blinking at the space and then pouting slightly.

Hm…

Honestly, it shouldn’t bother her so much. Sharing a bed. Big deal. 

But it is a big deal for…no reason she can easily grasp. Thancred is plenty comfortable with her closeness, her touches, unannounced or spontaneous, and everything else, so what’s the issue? 

She drops her bags and glowers at the bed before digging out her journal.

Thancred reappears some minutes later with bowls of stew. Gwen is busy writing in her journal, mostly making note about herbs and plants, but also trying to calm herself down and talk herself out of being so anxious. On reflection, she’s rather surprised that he got into the room without help. 

He gives her a bowl and settles in the other seat at the small table. He blandly regards their sleeping arrangements and says conversationally, “Well that figures, I suppose.”

Gwen gives a dry chuckle, pretending she hasn’t been considering that since she opened the door. “Not like we had much choice.”

“I hope you don’t hog the covers,” Thancred jokes. He’s not nearly so concerned about it…of course. 

She laughs softly and shakes her head, phrasing it as a joke even though it’s something she’s been fully considering, “I’ll just sleep on the floor, then it won’t be a problem.”

He chuckles. Then he looks at her face, studies her expression, and stops. His expression shifts and levels out, tinging with confusion, “You’re joking, surely?”

“Mostly. I mean, heh,” she smiles and laughs to reinforce the joking aspect even though she’s fully serious, “I’ve been told I’m not the best bedmate.”

Thancred frowns and it looks almost like disbelief or skepticism. “By whom?”

Aldous, mostly.

Every time Gwen recalls how long they spent together she wonders why she wasted her time.

Gwen waves a hand dismissively. “Someone I spent a few moons with once.”

“Not pleasant ones, by the sound of it,” he says. “As I recall you sleep like a rock.”

“I was drunk,” she reminds him, even as recalling that night lifts her mood a little.

He gives a lopsided smile that doesn’t quite touch his eyes, appearing to be genuinely offended by the idea someone thought she was a poor bedmate. “I’ll fetch a bottle of wine then, shall I?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Gwen says with a weak laugh and a shrug.

Thancred mumbles vaguely, his frown returning. He says, completely seriously, “You aren’t sleeping on the floor, dove.”

“Well I certainly don’t intend to make _you _sleep on the floor,” she says, now her turn to frown, “And the way I toss and turn, you wouldn’t want to share a bed with me anyhow.” 

The idea isn’t _unappealing_ so much as… inadvisable? At least for the sake of either of them getting any sleep.

The tossing and turning is mostly from fidgeting; she was never more keenly, aggravatingly, painfully aware of small discomforts and closeness than when she needed to be still for another’s sake. And those little things always wind up swelling out of proportion until it’s agony to be still or quiet and she’s forced to move or shift or adjust, cringing as she disturbs the other person for the sake of her restless mind. 

Nowadays, nightmares have been making her restless even after she falls asleep, too, and she’d surely wake him…. If she could even sleep with someone so close, that is. If she could stop worrying about what they’re thinking, if she could shut her mind off, if she could let minor discomforts slide by as usual instead of getting all fidgety. Which she’s not sure she could. 

It’s true she’s become comfortable around Thancred, but that isn’t necessarily a guarantee. She doesn’t want to keep him up tossing and turning, and she doesn’t want to spent all night anxious and uncomfortable and agonizing over every little shift she makes, either.

….How much of this is her –actually _her_ own discomfort– and how much of this is just leftover from Aldous? Valtemont had issues with her sleeping habits, too, but he hadn’t been nearly such a whiny arsehole about it.

“That is yet to be seen, and it’s a decision I get to make on my own,” Thancred assures with a wave of his hand, pulling her out of her thoughts. He pauses, realization passing across his face. The bed can fit two people, but they’ll be rather…snug. “Lest it’s my proximity that would bother you, of course.” 

She’s…not sure. It’s true she’s more comfortable with closeness in general, and particularly with him, so perhaps it would be alright. Perhaps sleeping wouldn’t be as big of an issue as she fears…. Maybe. There’s really no way to be sure at the moment.

“It’s not that,” Gwen says quickly, though it is a possibility. “I’m just… fidgety. I’d be worried about waking you up.” 

Thancred lays a hand semi-dramatically over his chest and says confidently, “I can sleep through anything, if it suits me. I’m not worried.”

He’s been so patient so far, she almost feels as if she’s dragging her feet. It’s being awake and anxious that’s the real problem, honestly, and if she can just _calm down_ then it will be fine.

Hopefully.

She’s probably just thinking too much, right? Making a big deal out of nothing Honestly, she slept fine that night she’d passed out on him, and so did he (though maybe there could be an argument made about drunk people being able to sleep just about _anywhere.._.) And– And what about the other times when they’ve sat together so comfortably? He’s never complained about her fidgeting then. And she’d even dozed off once or twice, too. Are those not worth anything now?

“If you’re certain I won’t drive you mad, we could give it a try.” Gwen smiles and pretends the suggestion doesn’t make her chest tighten a little even as her heart does a curiously light flip, “But for your own sake, you should stay on your side.”

Thancred smiles. “I shall endeavor to try. Though should the night grow too cold,” he winks suggestively, smile breaking into an easy grin, “I may be forced to cuddle for warmth.”

Gwen rolls her eyes to spare having to make a response, not thinking about that drunken evening… or rather, what little she can recall of it.

It truly wasn’t so hard as she was making it. And yet…

Gwen excuses herself to the bathroom first, glad for a few thoughtless minutes under a warm shower to scour away the sweat and road dust. She’s mostly grateful she’d had the forethought to bring a full set of bedclothes rather than just the large shirt she normally sleeps in. The latter would have surely made everything more awkward than it already was.

Only the lantern on the table is still lit, bright enough to see by but small enough to leave the edges and corners of the room comfortably dim and dark. She makes an effort not to look at Thancred as she crawls into bed, taking up the space closest to the wall. It eases her mind a bit to know neither of them will necessarily have to weather a night on the floor, especially after such a long day.

“Stay on your side unless you want me to keep you up all night,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Oh?” Thancred replies, voice teasingly suggestive, “In what sense?”

“An elbow in your ribs, to start,” she says dryly, holding in another laugh. He so easily helps her feel more at ease, whether on purpose or not, and she’s grateful for it.

Thancred laughs to himself, then the bathroom door closes.

He was far more bothered by the suggestion that someone had thought so poorly of sharing a bed with her than by the fact she might well kick him or startle him awake in the night. At the same time as it’s reassuring, she’s sure he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.

Gwen rolls her eyes and burrows down in the blankets. Then she reconsiders and shuffles them around until she only has the very edge. Not only did she fidget at night, she was also a blanket thief. 

Much as she came to dislike and disregard him after the fact, Aldous’ complaints still sting to recall. 

Gwen is properly tired and the bed is passibly comfortable, and the combination is enough that she quickly starts to drift off and sink into sleep.

Water runs somewhere else. The darkness behind her eyes is lighter than it should be, but not so much as to keep her awake.

Her wandering thoughts find the beginnings of dreams about an encroaching storm. The air grows thick with smoke, low voices murmuring somewhere in the distance. Lightning lances across the sky and a strange, dark shadow bursts into existence and then just as quickly melts away.

A door clicks shut. Things rustle around, followed by a bit of muttering. Then full darkness falls.

Gwen shudders, hunching down against her pillow.

Images start to swirl and run together: a dark hallway, Ultima, Ifrit… Each one ends with a brilliant burst of daylight from her own hands that’s emboldening, bolstering, but not comforting. 

The ground sinks behind her and her weight shifts. She jerks, opening her eyes to a dark room.

“Apologies, dove,” Thancred’s voice murmurs from nowhere. The bed shifts a little more, then stills. “Go back to sleep.”

He sounds far away even as a thin, rational part of her brain reminds her that they’re sharing a small bed and he’s well within arm’s reach. Small bed, yet he’s managed to avoid touching her, she belatedly notices. That is… good. Why? Because of she thought when she was awake, probably; she can’t recall it now, half-immersed in sleep.

She burrows her face in her blanket and wills herself to remember calmer things –the Sylphs, the quiet days at the Sands and the Rising Stones, foraging in Gridania– and drifts off again.

She has mixed success.

When Gwen starts to wake she feels warm and comfortable, but somehow odd. 

She’s not sure why. If she’s slept well, if she’s comfortable, shouldn’t she feel fine?

There’s muted noise beneath her ear: a beat thumping steadily and the sound of whispering wind.

Gwen cracks her eyes open with a confused mumble. It’s early enough to be bright, but not late enough for the light to lose its misty softness.

“All this talk about me staying on my side, and here you are,” Thancred’s voice mumbles, both beneath her ear and above her head. “I suppose our negotiations didn’t specify anything about _you _keeping to _your_ side, did they? How clever of you.”

She twitches, recognizing the warmth of another person pressed against her front, under her arm, and under her cheek.

Gwen stiffens like ice, holding her breath. She didn’t mean to– when–?

A hand rests on her head, fingers carding soothingly through her hair. “I’m kidding, dove. Relax. It’s still early. Sleep if you’re tired.”

She lifts her head anyway, eyes wide. She should roll away, but she can’t move. “Wh-when did I…?”

Thancred smiles lazily, one arm folded behind his head with the other around her shoulders. “Some time in the middle of the night,” he says idly, utterly comfortable and unconcerned. “Seemed like you were having a nightmare. I thought I might wake you and spare you the suffering, and lo and behold,” he gestures towards their current position, her pressed close to his side with an arm draped across his chest and one leg bent up to rest on his, “this happened.”

Gwen’s face burns, “I woke you.” She knew she would.

“Briefly,” he admits with a shrug, not seeming nearly as bothered by it as she is. “But it was no trouble.“ He shifts his shoulders a little and makes a contented hum, “You seemed to rest a little easier clinging to me, I think. Despite your assertion about being a poor bedmate, I slept soundly, and quite undisturbed, for the rest of the night.”

Oh, well, that’s good, at least… And apparently she slept fine, too, so… The heat on her face reaches up into her ears and down her neck, “I, ah–”

“Pray don’t apologize,” Thancred says, still stroking her hair as though it’s calming her. “In fact, I may have slept better for your cuddling.”

She pauses, clinging to that through the encroaching haze of nervousness and doubt. “R…really?” Given his habit of rarely sleeping alone, that’s not all that surprising.

He doesn’t answer immediately, weighing the tone of her voice. “Really, dove.” He smiles at her, easy and calm, “I could do with a bit more rest, truth be told. We had quite the trek yesterday–”

Because of him.

He doesn’t give her the chance to say that. “Might I convince you to linger a bit longer?”

Thancred really doesn’t mind she woke him up? Or that she’d–? And he wants–? 

Well, it’s not _that_ surprising, is it? He doesn’t have her issue with cuddling or closeness, and he’d been perfectly comfortable with the suggestion of sharing a bed the moment they saw the room. 

Gwen can’t say she isn’t comfortable, really–at least not physically. But…

She asks anyway, “Are you…sure? I–”

He cuts her off, smiling warmly, “Positive. Please?”

She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes, “S-sure…Alright.” She tentatively rests her head on his chest, listening to the easy beat of his heart to calm her own. 

—————————–

_WRITING UNTIL LITERALLY THE LAST MINUTE BECAUSE I SLEPT TILL NOON OOPS_

Even though it’s thrown together, I think it actually came out pretty well? :O

yaaay!

Started trying to do a “oh no only one bed” and then soooooo ran out of time and kept getting distracted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr:  
_WRITING UNTIL LITERALLY THE LAST MINUTE BECAUSE I SLEPT TILL NOON OOPS_
> 
> _Even though it’s thrown together, I think it actually came out pretty well? :O_
> 
> _yaaay!_
> 
> _Started trying to do a “oh no only one bed” and then soooooo ran out of time and kept getting distracted_


	19. Crunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryne PoV, set after 'Foster' / post 5.0

A question has been rolling around in Ryne’s head like a loose marble since they returned from Kholusia, but she’s not entirely sure she should ask it. But no matter how she tells herself that, something will come along that gets it rolling again, nudging her thoughts and clattering around the back of her mind.

She finds the nerve while she and Thancred are finishing up at Hanji-Fae’s shop one day. Gwen isn’t with them, off to meet a dwarf about hunting another one of the Cardinal Virtues.

“Thancred?” Ryne asks, almost hesitantly. 

He glances down at her. “Going to tell me what’s been on your mind?”

He always notices. She needs to work on her poker face.

A sudden surge of paranoia drives her to cast a quick glance around. The coast is clear. “Who is Aifread?”

Thancred’s expression is utterly neutral as he shifts the bag of groceries to one hand and delves into it. His tone matches it, “Where did you hear that name?” 

From him, while she’d been laid up in Wright, half-delirious and retching up everything she’d eaten in the previous week. It’s all a haze of nausea and discomfort, but she remembers a few things clearly: lying on the floor half-wondering if she’d ever feel better, Gwen tying her hair up and mumbling soothing things, and the shock of a cold towel against her heated forehead. The blissful chill had both eased her headache enough that she could sleep and cleared her mind, just for a moment.

_“She isn’t Aifread.”_

Thancred had spoken so gently and carefully, like he was walking on thin ice; like he knew he was, maybe, saying something he shouldn’t. 

Ryne had never heard him speak like that before. He’d said it so quietly, just at the edge of her hearing, he probably hadn’t intended her to hear him at all.

Given his reaction to the question, she wonders if she maybe should have left it alone. But it’s too late now. Instead of going into the full explanation, she says, “I heard you mention it once.” 

Thancred finally pulls out a cookie, blandly brown with a few darkened chips in it, and considers it. “In Wright?” His tone is still even and neutral.

Ryne is a little surprised he knows that. Apparently the name doesn’t come up very often. “Yes.”

Thancred snaps the cookie in two and gives her half, looking into the middle distance with an unreadable expression. 

Ryne quickly realizes he isn’t going to answer, instead intending to be silent until she changes the topic or he brings up a new one like she never asked anything in the first place. It’s nothing new. Stubborn silence is Thancred’s go-to tactic when he doesn’t want to answer questions or explain himself, particularly when deflections have failed him and leaving the situation isn’t an option. 

She isn’t all that surprised, truth be told. She’s gathered that name is something of a secret, or at least something that’s not often discussed, but she still feels a little kick of disappointment to know her question will go unanswered.

Ryne frowns at the broken half of cookie in her hands, frustration quickly starting to bubble and sour in her chest. He’s been more open recently, so she’d hoped… Why does he always close off like this? There’s nothing wrong with privacy, of course not, but he could just _say that_ instead of falling silent–

“Gwen’s brother.”

Ryne nearly stumbles, her thoughts hitting a snag and falling apart in an instant. 

Thacred is giving his half of the cookie a firm look, like he doesn’t quite trust that it’s okay to eat. She’s not sure if he’s purposely not looking at her, or if it’s simply a look of intense thought.

“Gwen has a brother?” She’s never mentioned siblings before, or any of her family, for that matter. Ryne had occasionally wondered if it was for her sake, to not draw attention to or harp on something Ryne didn’t have, or something like that. She hadn’t really considered…

Thancred pops the cookie in his mouth, apparently judging it safe. That firm look lingers and he keeps his eyes ahead, scanning Musica Universalis for their next destination. So it’s not that he’s not answering, then. It’s that he’s taking time to really think about what to say. He’s trying to figure out how much of someone else’s personal life he can share. Normally he isn’t terribly tight-lipped about that sort of thing, elaborating with a bit of snark or a wry comment, but he’s being completely serious now. 

Ryne turns her half of cookie in her fingers and waits.

Finally he says, “She did.”

Oh. _Oh…_

A pang of sympathy lights up in Ryne’s chest, and she lowers her eyes. She’s never lost someone before, though Gwen and Thancred had both come disastrously close. She can keenly recall the hole of aching emptiness that had opened up inside her when they’d thought Y’shtola had perished saving the antidote for the Night’s Blessed.

She eats her cookie rather than trying to respond, using the motion of her jaw to help her thoughts to keep moving. 

It’s a little overbaked, crunching loudly between her teeth and drying her tongue like a mouthful of sand

The taste is pleasant enough, brown butter and a tinge of coffee with just enough sugar to not be bitter, but she wrinkles her nose at the texture. Bits of coffee bean, the dark spots, get stuck in her teeth and she tries to wrestle them out with her tongue.

So he’s… Then Gwen… But, wait, “What does that have to do with me?” 

“What do you think?” Thancred replies cryptically.

Ryne casts him a curious look and he taps one finger meaningfully against his temple. _Think about it. _

She purses her lips thoughtfully and considers what little she knows. Clearly Thancred thinks she has enough pieces to make a full picture with, and he’s leaving it to her to arrange them correctly.

What else did they talk about that night? She can’t remember most of it except for that one instance. He’d tried to assure Gwen that Ryne would be alright before resorting to mentioning Aifread. It hadn’t done much good.

So she’d been worried, then? Because Ryne was sick? 

“I wasn’t that sick,” Ryne says, almost as a question. She’d been miserable, sure, but her short-lived illness hadn’t been life threatening or dire. But despite that Gwen had hovered around her all day, at Ryne’s side almost every moment. It was sort of nice not having to worry about doing anything besides resting and getting better, but also a little smothering. Ryne wasn’t a baby, after all. Gwen has always been the type to lend a hand when her friends are in need, but that was something entirely different. 

“In the grand scheme, no,” Thancred agrees, digging into the bag again. “But it was quite a harrowing day. For both of you.”

“So,” Ryne says slowly. In a certain light that concern and care was almost motherly, but in another... “Aifread got sick?”

Thancred nods, retrieving another coffee biscuit. Ryne shakes her head when he moves to break it in half. She prefers to soak the cookies in coffee and eat them when they’re all soft and squidgey. Besides, that last one was a bit overbaked and had been unpleasantly brittle and crunchy rather than light and crispy.

When he realizes she’s hit a snag he prompts, “And?”

And?

Ryne thinks a little more, recalling Thancred’s gentle tone and the way he’d tried to be reassuring. 

Her heart sinks a little, melancholy settling on her like mist. Gwen _had _a brother. “He…didn’t get better.”

Thancred nods.

“That’s awful…”

Thancred hesitates a moment before rearranging the load in his arms to reach over and pat her head. Ryne’s a little startled by the gesture, but she appreciates it, immediately drawing a bit of comfort from the simple gesture.

When he withdraws his hand she absently reaches up to make sure he hasn’t left any crumbs. He audibly snorts and it inspires the beginnings of a giggle, helping her slide out from under the heavy realization.

She says thoughtfully, “She’s never mentioned him.”

“She didn’t on the Source either,” Thancred says with a shrug..

Ryne idly lifts her eyes to the crystaline ceiling, glittering and glowing in the sun. “Do the others know about him?”

“They know _of _him. His name, at least.”

She glances at Thancred, “But you know more.”

“I have my methods,” he says, cryptic once more, and takes an audible bite of cookie. Definitely overbaked. He adds thickly, “And I’ve put more effort into puzzling it all out.”

Ryne cradles her hands to her chest, thinking. Her question was answered, and now she has more. Perhaps…? “Can you tell me about him?”

Thancred wipes crumbs from his lips with the back of his wrist, “It’s not really my place, now, is it? Besides, I don’t know a great deal myself. As you’ve seen, she never speaks of her family.”

Ryne stares expectantly at him, hoping he might tell her a bit more anyway. It seems to work for everyone else.

He rolls his eyes. “Prying is rude.”

“You do it,” she reminds him.

“I’m your role model now, am I?” Thancred drawls with a smirk.

She narrows her eyes, “Aren’t you?”

He frowns, and after a beat it pulls to one side and his brow furrows. She had him there. “Hmph.” His expression sobers again and he looks elsewhere, actually considering answering. 

Ryne waits.

Eventually Thancred sighs, adjusting their path to head for Axel’s stall. “He was younger than her, about half her age,” he says, a little quietly like he doesn’t want to be overheard. “She had to care for the both of them, which forced her to grow up quickly. That was how she got her start in botany.” He glances at the bag, debating for a moment before deciding against taking another cookie. “He was almost five summers old when they both fell ill, and then… Well.”

Ryne winces, half-lamenting her stubbornness. She notices Thancred rather purposefully didn’t mention her mother or father, and decides against inquiring further. 

So seeing Ryne sick had stirred up painful memories that had reminded Gwen of when her brother had fallen ill and passed away… 

She didn’t know it would… She hadn’t even been that ill…

Ryne almost wants to apologize for the distress she caused, but she can’t do it apropos of nothing, lest she give away her accidental eavesdropping and the fact that Thancred has been sharing.

She’ll find a way.

Instead she asks, “Does she get worried like that about everyone when they get sick?”

Thancred chuckles and a bit of the soft, fond look he only ever seems to get around Gwen colors the edges of his expression. “Not to quite the same degree, maybe, but she does worry, and she deals with it by coddling and caring for whoever’s unlucky enough to be ill.” His smile quirks, “Some of us are more amenable to it than others.”

“Urianger?” Ryne asks.

“He’s a patient sort, so he’s always humored her,” Thancred replies. “Particularly after he came to understand why she does it.”

“Y’shtola?”

He scoffs, “She tolerates it, to an extent. ‘_I’m ill, Guinevere, not invalid. I can take care of myself,_’” he says, in a surprisingly accurate imitation of the thaumaturge’s voice.

The accuracy of it startles a laugh out of her, and Thancred smiles a little.

“She softened a little, too, when she learned Gwen had lost someone to illness, but only a little. Let’s see…Alphinaud’s too embarrassed and proud to want to be looked after, but he doesn’t have the will to outright tell her ‘no’, so he uncomfortably tolerates it,” he continues. “And Alisaie is somewhere between Urianger and Y’shtola, depending on just how miserable she is.”

Ryne cocks her head, red hair tumbling over one shoulder, “What about you?” He’s gotten ill a time or too, and he was a bit of a grouch about it.

Thancred sighs and shrugs, almost helplessly, “It makes her feel better, so…” He pauses and glances meaningfully at Ryne, “Don’t mention anything about Aifread to her.”

She doesn’t really have a lot to mention, but she gets his meaning. 

Ryne nods, and he actually looks faintly relieved. Perhaps he’s not supposed to tell anyone about Gwen’s brother.

He has nothing to worry about, he taught her everything she knows about keeping secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_5.2 edit: apparently Ryne likes coffee biscuits. THANKS SQUEENIX. I just went and fiddled with this a little to make it match XDD_  
_<s>What’s this? NOT submitting at the last minute?! WHO IS THIS</s>_  
_Thought I’d give Ryne point of view a try :O lemme know how I did!_  
_Bit of Gwen backstory! I like how this came out :D_  
_The coffee biscuits are for Gwen as a welcome-back gift (I might write a little blurb for that) because, after how she’s come back from her previous adventures with Giott, she’ll need them. _  
_Because goddamn did the healer sin eater quests make FEEL FEELINGS and Giott bugged the fuck out of me for so long XD I ended up liking her in the last few quests though_


	20. Parched

Thanalan’s sun was unforgiving, blazing irreverently overhead as Gwen wiled away bells filling her satchel and assorted jars with whatever she could find between Camp Drybone and Broken Water.

Gwen swiped an arm across her brow and belatedly wondered if she actually managed to wipe away any sweat or if she’d merely smeared it around. After a moment of debate she ducked under a jut of rock to cool off and give her feet a break, surveying her surroundings as she caught her breath.

The desert was a place of opposites, the land and air both bone-dry unless it was monsoon season, searing hot during the day and near freezing at night. The desert was sandy and flat in some places, rocky and hilly in others, every ilm of it rough and parched unless it was oversaturated and flooding with more water than it could handle. Stubborn plants, some wiry, some scraggly, some with delicate little blossoms, all of them tough and hearty, had found ways to survive, or even thrive, despite the unforgiving conditions.

It was nothing like the dense, loamy forest she was used to. In the Shroud the ground was covered in lush grasses, mosses and ferns, the air muggy in the summer from the almost-nightly thunderstorms. The ground was softer and very few plants perished for want of water; even the harder, more densely packed parts were at least a bit damp and run through with some stubborn roots.

The Shroud was towering and vibrantly green, while Thanalan was expansive and painted in reds and browns.

When Gwen first arrived in Ul’dah she’d worried if botany and gathering would be viable, as she’d come to rely on the trade both for money and to feed herself when work was scarce. X’hrun could only help so much, and the last thing she wanted was to be a burden. 

Momodi had been happy to set her straight on the matter, and happier still to come to an arrangement that involved her gathering whatever ingredients the Quicksand’s kitchens were lacking. Rather than paying her directly, Momodi struck a deal with Otopa to reduce the rate of Gwen’s room, giving the fledgling adventurer’s purse a modicum of breathing room while sparing the proprietress the prices in the markets and the cost of couriers.

After wisely spending a bit of gil on books about the desert’s flora and fauna, all of Gwen’s lingering doubts about the proprietress’ claims were laid to rest. Honestly, it was not so terribly different than the Shroud once she knew where to look. She could still get by on the surprising bounty of the desert, either from selling what Momodi didn’t need or by partaking in it herself. 

Black pepper, mustard seed, garlic, parsnips and carrots didn’t fetch high prices, but they were easy enough to find and necessities for a multitude of common dishes. Someone was always willing to buy them, though not for too much. 

Saffron fetched a high price, but it was difficult to find. Crocus flowers could tolerate a lot, somehow always finding a shaded crevice or shadowy patch to grow in, but even they had their limits.

If she was willing to take a risk, the alchemist’s guild was perpetually in need of scorpions and vipers, and they didn’t split too many hairs when it came to compensation. Antivenoms and antidotes were a vital part of first aid and there was a (dubiously) steady demand for them, for one reason or another. Most went to Phonistery and the Immortal Flames, neither wanting to risk their stockpile running out. 

One wrong move, however, could mean Gwen would need a dose of the antivenom she was trying to help create. Once she had thicker gloves and quicker hands the scorpions, at least, were far less harrowing. 

Once she’d found something of a routine, once she’d figured out how to make her way, Gwen quickly grew accustomed Thanalan and its extremes. Sometimes she was even a bit fond of it all. Duskfeather seemed to prefer the wide open skies and bright sun to the Shroud’s crowd of branches and dappled shade.

Gwen didn’t even mind the heat all that much, though that didn’t mean she was enamored with it. Maybe her parents’ talk about ‘desert blood’ actually had some weight behind it, though she had no idea how similar Thanalan and Dalmasca actually were. She used to think a desert was a desert and that was all there was to itt, but of course nothing was ever so simple, and she’d learned the error of her ways quickly enough.

At that moment, on a day when she traded training in red magics and dueling for simpler manual labor, Gwen didn’t have the zeal or patience to search for crocus or hunt scorpions. Instead she’d chosen to substitute rarity with quantity, spending her time trimming sprigs of laurel, collecting handfuls of pungent mustard seeds and digging up thick, knobby popotos and ginseng roots..

Gwen hefted her pack, the weight of it providing a solid sense of satisfaction that made the dirt on her knees and under her nails, the scrapes on her knuckles and and the sweat running down her face more worthwhile. She took a long drink of water that nearly drained the skin, forcing herself to not to finish it off despite the fact her mouth still felt a little dry. 

One of the things she’d learned about the desert: ration her water, and save the last of it until a fresh source was within sight (or reach, damn mirages.) Nothing made a trek through the heat more grueling and desperate than being out of water.

She weighed her waterskin in her hand thoughtfully and scratched her fingers through the dry, brittle earth at her side. How long had she been out foraging? She leaned out of the shade and squinted up towards the sun to gauge the hour.

Well, it didn’t actually matter, did it? She was almost out of water. That was the clearest sign it was time to pack up and return to town that she could ask for.

As she stood up and dusted herself off she glanced down at her arms, bare from the mid-bicep down to where her thick gloves reached just above her wrists. She fancied she could, maybe, feel her skin growing a bit too tight and hot.

She’d find some aloe first, _then _she’d head back to town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_I started out wanting to do a sick fic but then it started getting away from me so I scrapped it. I like this waaaay more! :D_  
_<s>idk if it would actually be reasonable/profitable/reliable to gather shit in a desert but hey the nodes are up in game all the time so</s>_  
_idk what other people did for their WoL’s housing situation for the very beginning/very early MSQ, but I decided Gwen lived at the Hourglass while she got her shit together_


	21. Unctuous

Gwen’s skin is starting to truly sting when she finds a promising spot, a veritable island of small bushes and tall grasses that seem to explode out from where a rocky cliff meets the sandy earth. The plant she needs is growing right at the edge: a clump of triangular leaves growing in vaguely-concentric layers, each of them thick, shockingly green and dotted with spikes, splayed out where it can be in full sunlight.

The spikes that line the leaves are rigid but not overly sharp, stabbing dully at her gloves as she cuts one free. It’s flexible, bending and folding in defiance of her initial attempts to break it. It finally snaps in two with a crisp, sharp sound just as she’s thinking she’ll have to resort to cutting it open. 

The inside is filled to the brim with a clear, jelly-like substance that smells vaguely of freshness and algae, glimmering like water in the sun. It’s innocuous enough in appearance and doesn’t immediately ward her off, but at the same time it doesn’t quite look like something one would want to touch, let alone smear on their skin.

She doesn’t think much of it. Medicine is rarely appealing or enticing for reasons other than its healing properties. Taste, in particular, always seems to be considered unimportant.

Gwen cuts at the thick membrane of the leaf with her knife before the contents is loosened enough that she can squeeze it onto her arm. The watery gel is strangely cool to the touch and feels as unctuous as it looks, the glob leaving a slick, oily snail trail as it begins to immediately slide across her skin and down her arm.

She abandons the spent leaf and rubs the gel over both her arms, dabbing the leftovers on her face and neck as a precaution. She sighs with relief when her irritated skin immediately cools, the too-tight sting easing and vanishing in moments. The thin layer of gel and its residue dry like a layer of paint and leave her skin feeling a little stiff, but the soothing effect is more than worth it. 

Gwen knows her skin will probably still be red and hot in a few hours despite the natural unguent, but a few more applications and a bit of conjury will ensure her sunburn isn’t too bad.

She harvests a few more leaves and makes a mental note to bring ointment to prevent such things next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_hhhnnngggggg…._
> 
> _This one was hard, but when in doubt just keep writing <s>what you were writing before lol </s>  
It’s a weird word. I don’t like the spelling or the sound of it, honestly >.< _
> 
> _Feels kinda phone-in-y, but this challenge is about posting it anyway/good enough being good enough without having to be perfect/ settling for what you can do instead of agonizing over it, so I’m gonna think of this as a lesson/example of such. /shrug_
> 
> _Hopefully I can do better with the next prompt!_


	22. Slosh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References “For Those We Have Lost” Dragonsong MSQ, specifically with a flashback to the WoL getting drugged and passing out in Falcon’s Nest

Gwen wraps both hands around her mug, soaking up the warmth of it and breathing the tendrils of steam that smell of mulling spices. She sloshes the mulled wine around rather than taking a drink, watching the dark surface shift, ripple and smooth out 

Thancred sits quietly beside her, on her left where she wouldn’t be in his blind spot, nursing his own drink. He has something of a flat, tired look about him, and he doesn’t look quite so surly as she expected. His mood has been doing odd things since the Conference, but, given what came before, Gwen tries to take it all with a grain of salt and not pass judgment. She’s still fairly out-of-sorts herself since then, too.

They haven’t spoken beyond when she’d asked to sit, as he’d already been there for… She doesn’t actually know how long, and decides it’s not worth thinking about. He’s a grown man, after all, and he seems to barely even be tipsy, let alone in his cups. The air between them isn’t tense, but it’s not the same as the companionable silence they used to share.

Gwen considers her drink and finds she…doesn’t want to drink it. She’s not sure why, given that she’d ordered it herself minutes ago. It’s her drink of choice at the Knight because she likes Gibrillont’s mix of mulling spice, not to mention she could use the warmth after her walk through the blustery chill outside. 

But the moment he set the mug in front of her she found she didn’t have the taste for it. She has yet to drink any of it, merely warming her hands while she thinks.

“So,” Thancred says, rather too blandly to be conversational, “you’re for Ishgard in the Melee.”

“I admit I felt more than a bit on-the-spot in the moment,” Gwen adds a small laugh to lighten it. “But after everything House Fortemps did for Alphinaud, Tataru and I,” she pauses to navigate carefully around thoughts of Haurchefant, no longer shrouded in a pall of grief but still tender and aching to the touch, “it’s the least I could do.”

Thancred hums a neutral sound and drums his fingers on his mug, looking over at her. “Ser Aymeric is certainly happy about it,” he quips, wry and teasing.

Gwen shakes her head and makes an exasperated sound, feeling her cheeks redden a little. Aymeric is a good man, determined, smart and compassionate, and she can’t say she’s not a little fond of him, but when it comes down to it she thinks of him as one of her dearest friends and nothing more.

Eventually she’s probably going to have to tell him that instead of simply carrying on pretending he isn’t practically smitten.

She can consider that more seriously when she isn’t actively being teased about it. 

Gwen tilts her head and shoots Thancred a look. “Be nice.”

Thancred snorts, looking smug as he finishes off his drink and signals for another.

She lifts her mug but doesn’t drink, instead holding it near her face and breathing in the steam. The aroma of mulling spices and red wine doesn’t smell half as enticing as it normally does, growing less appealing the longer she breathes it in.

It feels odd to just hold it like she is, but, despite her thirst, she simply doesn’t want to drink. She still hasn’t been able to figure out why.

Thancred makes a curious sound beside her, and when she looks up she finds him regarding her with a look that’s a little too focused and intense to merely be thoughtful, a certain knowing glimmer in his eye. She’s not entirely sure what to make of it, but it makes her uncomfortably aware of herself, from her clothes to the windburn on her cheeks to the way she’s sitting.

He reaches for her drink, “Give it here,” and plucks it from her hands.

Gwen pouts at him, slightly bemused, “I could have handed it to you.”

Thancred ignores her, peering clinically at her wine. He tilts the cup to one side and then the other, then gives it an unsubtle sniff.

She’s not sure what to make of all that, either. She suddenly feels like she needs to defend the fact she hasn’t taken so much as a sip, “I wanted to warm my hands while it cooled a little.”

Thancred gives her a flat look that perfectly conveys his disbelief. He holds her gaze when her pout slides into a frown and she folds her arms a bit defensively, not appreciating his sudden scrutiny.

He maintains eye contact as he lifts the mug to his lips.

Goosebumps race up her arms and her heart does an odd little misstep that makes her back tense up. She suddenly can’t hear the clamor of the bar, all of her attention on him and her drink.

Her frown shifts a little, her brows pushing closer together. What just happened?

Thancred doesn’t look the least bit surprised, or deterred, and continues to maintain contact as he takes a long drink.

Her heart does another misstep, unease leaning on her senses.

He swallows, completely unphased, and finally tears his gaze from hers to look down at her wine. He sits in silence, watching it like he thinks it might do something.

Gwen realizes she’s holding her breath, the tension in her back now spread all the way to her fingers and toes. She makes herself breathe, though it doesn’t help her relax.

After a full minute Thancred looks satisfied, partially with himself and partially with…she’s not sure what. He hands her mug back, “It’s fine,” and turns back to his drink like he hadn’t just pretended to be a sommelier for no reason.

“Fine?” Gwen echoes, baffled. She didn’t ask for his opinion, and it’s not like he’s never had the Knight’s wine before.

“To drink,” he says, like that’s a full explanation.

She opens her mouth but the words get blocked behind a memory that bursts to the front of her mind..

_The taste of wine, mulling spices and…something else?_

_Her head throbbing suddenly, her vision pulsing and then starting warp and darken. Her limbs turning leaden, too heavy to move_

_The world wobbling, listing to one side, and then pain cracking through her head when she hits a stone floor._

Gwen stares at her mug, her mind suddenly whirling with a dozen thoughts at once, crashing into each other and tangling together until they come to a stop in one big knot.

How could she have… She didn’t _forget_, she just didn’t think… Mulled wine is her usual drink at the Forgotten Knight. She didn’t even think about it. It didn’t even occur to her that she might…

Thancred saw she wasn’t drinking and immediately knew why, even when she didn’t, so he’d tested her wine without her even asking.

The Conference is a few days gone now, but that memory is still painfully fresh and more than a little unsettling. Though, apparently, not so fresh that she hasn’t already begun to bury and repress it.

“Care to trade?”

Gwen looks up. Thancred is wearing a rueful smile and offering his mug. She doesn’t know what he’s drinking, but it must not be wine.

“I…” The knot twists, frustration cutting at it. She firmly reminds herself that she _cannot_ let struggles, failures or bad experiences control her life. She can't let the trials and tribulations of the world dictate her path for her. She will _not _let this one instance turn her off wine forever, she knows that for certain. She won’t ignore and avoid her problem and hope it gets better on its own.

If she wants to move on, to feel better --and she does-- she will have to deal with it.

She frowns down at her cup, jaw set stubbornly. But as she stares at it she's reminded of other things, similar hurdles and stumbles that she set aside in the past. There are quite a few, actually.

The fire of determination in her chest starts to gutter a bit, tempered with patience and rationality.

Starting on one thing, she knows, will cause the others to come tumbling forward after it. Not so violently as a rock slide or avalanche, but similarly as inevitable and unavoidable. Upon reflection, many of the things she'd yet set aside are rather more important than her taste for wine, too. And...

...Well, that sounds like a lot to handle.

Perhaps she would be better off _not_ digging up and unpacking everything she’s been burying right then and there, or trying to impatiently brute force her way through. Perhaps somewhere private, instead; and only after she's taken a bit of time to ready herself and find the proper head space and figure out her priorities. She could save reacquiring her taste for mulled wine for later, until after she’s worked out all the splintered, jagged things lurking beneath her thoughts.

Gwen doesn’t say yes, but the mildly guilty look on her face and the disappointed twist of her mouth are answer enough.

They swap mugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_*puff* *wheez* AT THE DEADLINE AGAIN. FUCK._
> 
> _This one was really hard @_@ but I like how it came out!_
> 
> _Ending was the most difficult, but I like how it came out._


	23. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Spoilers up to unlocking the Qitana Ravel dungeon (lvl 75 MSQ?)
> 
> *Set after ‘Wilt’
> 
> *I’m currently subscribed to ‘because Duskfeather is a regular/non-magical creature he couldn’t make the trip to the First’ headcanon, as that’s how I’ve been treating him for all of ShB so far.

Thancred isn’t remotely surprised to find Gwen at the jaculu pens, watching the creatures despite the fact that they’re all sleeping and doing precisely nothing worth watching. Her eyes had lit up with glee –_glee_– when one had soared over their heads as they entered Fanow, and anyone who’s known her for more than a day, on the Source, anyway, knows she has a fondness for the creatures.

Her lifted mood had lasted all of a minute, if that. The last few days had been naught but one harrowing twist of fate after the next, starting from the moment the Eulmorans had joined forces with the Children of the Everlasting Dark and all but declared war on the Night’s Blessed.

They’d endured and fought on, as they always did, as what else could they have done?

Everything wound up alright in the end, thank the Twelve, but it had taken a hell of a toll.

And they still weren’t done, everything before now mere obstacles and hurdles on the road to their real challenge: the light warden that’s lurking somewhere in The Qitana Ravel.

_That’s a problem for tomorrow, not now_, he tells himself, trying not to let himself fully consider or grasp the magnitude of such a task, lest the thought drain him any further. He wouldn’t know it looking at the sky, but the hour is late. _Tomorrow. Think about it tomorrow. Not now._

But tomorrow is never so far away as it sounds, always looming just over his shoulder. Unless he’s waiting for something, of course, and then tomorrow is always impossibly out of reach.

Gwen is watching the sleeping jaculu with an unmistakably wistful look, an air of longing about her akin to homesickness. If Thancred didn’t know better he would think she was considering climbing into the pen and cuddling with the jaculu in place of a certain ornery griffin. 

Duskfeather didn’t make the trip to the First, and she’s been without him for more than a moon now. She hasn’t mentioned or drawn much attention to his absence, just as she so rarely gives voice to any of her problems, but she’s written about it often enough, and Thancred knows her well enough, to know that she misses Duskfeather deeply.

Gwen knows better than to act on whatever she may be thinking or, at least, Thancred hopes she does. If the jaculu are as similar to griffins in temperament as they are in appearance, they won’t take kindly to a stranger trying to cuddle them. 

Given the look on her face, she might just try anyway.

Thancred shakes his head and approaches, drawling, “If you want to steal one, you’re on your own.”

Gwen turns her face slightly towards him, eyes remaining on the sleeping birds. Her mouth curves in a weak smile, “I don’t look that desperate, do I?”

“You’re _pining_, dove.”

Her smile tilts, turning a little wry, “You wouldn’t help?” 

“I can’t say the idea of getting maimed has ever appealed to me. I much prefer my extremities the way they are: attached and undamaged.” He holds out his hands and wiggles his fingers to prove it.

Gwen lets out a small laugh and then sighs, sagging against the gate to the pen. She looks… not quite miserable, maybe, but only barely.

Guilt worms its way into the back of his mind for the few jokes he’s made about Duskfeather’s absence, mostly of them pertaining to Gwen having to walk everywhere rather than fly. Funny in the moment perhaps, she’d smiled or rolled her eyes at the time, but they were in poor taste.

Duskfeather is unreachable but Thancred isn’t, and he’s far less opposed to hugs than a jaculu would be. Hopefully that’s good enough. 

He smooths his hand down her back, leaning against the gate just beside her. 

Gwen smiles, mostly to herself, and shifts over to lean against him.

Rak’tika is quiet except for the bugs and the snoring jaculu, strange half-tweet, half-purring sounds emanating from where their heads are tucked under their wings to hide from the light. As the two of them stand there together Thancred becomes aware of a slight tension in the quasi-silence, the kind that suggests Gwen has something to say but hasn’t yet decided how to parse it.

He doesn’t try to rush her, though he’d prefer the both of them get to sleep sooner rather than later. The last few days have been long, and tomorrow won’t be any shorter.

Thancred casts a wary glance over his shoulder, wondering if Emet-selch is going to drop in unannounced again. 

The Ascian had the decency to make himself scarce earlier, on top of actually doing something _useful _rather than merely plaguing them an ulcer that’s been cursed with speech, but Thancred finds little comfort in his absence. Not being able to see Emet-Selch means very little given his irritating propensity for eavesdropping and intruding whenever the mood strikes him.

A visual sweep of the area doesn’t reveal any black coats or brown-and-white hair, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Emet-selch _isn’t _there.

“Thancred?” Gwen asks quietly. 

Her tone immediately draws his attention. He looks back to find her picking and chipping away at her nails, and the sight draws worry up from the back of his mind.

He wraps his arm around her waist and rests his other hand over hers, putting and end to the nervous habit. “What is it?”

Her hands curl around his, loose for a moment before squeezing. “Do you,” she asks mutedly, mostly to his hands, “trust me?”

The question catches him off guard, but even so Thanced is keenly aware that doubt is adept at taking root in silence. The quickness of his reply is as important as his words, so he answers at once, “Of course, dove. Completely,” and curls his hand as best he can around both of hers, squeezing reassuringly.

Gwen exhales and relaxes a little, pressing closer to him.

Though he’s glad she’s reassured, he’s more concerned about where that question had come from. He’d let his mind run off in a dozen different directions while he answered, and now is doing his best to catch up to his thoughts.

He thought his trust in her was obvious, and the implication that it isn’t settles oddly on him. Or maybe she’s just seeking a bit of affirmation in a moment of weakness? It wouldn’t be the first time.

A thought drifts past: could it be about her journal?

An uncomfortable feeling crawls across his thoughts. It could be, maybe, but what does that have to do with trust?

Well, he’d stolen her journal right before she went to Mord Souq, then played the fool when she returned. It’s an odd fit, maybe, but it’s the only connection that springs to mind.

But she thought she’d lost it, she has no idea he took it.

Unless…

A jolt of cold panic shoots up his spine and his heart seizes up.

Does she know? Has she known, or suspected, this whole time?

Worry seeps through him, leaving nausea in its wake that Thancred grits his teeth against. He does his best to outwardly keep his composure, glad that Gwen’s unfocused gaze still directed at the sleeping jaculu rather than at him. He controls his next breath, his heart suddenly jumping from stillness to a breakneck pace that makes his chest ache. The cold nausea lingers, collecting in his gut like pieces of broken glass.

Every time he recalls their fight, the yelling, the words they’d hurled at one another that hit too close to the truth, the way he’d lashed out and struck her desk, his heart does a sickened little flip and something inside him cracks.

He curses the way he’d lost control as well as the useless state he’d been left in afterwards, off balance and practically in shock at his own actions. He’d felt as though he’d been broken open somehow, his thoughts forcibly scattered but for the walls he’d built around himself. It had nearly taken physical effort to pull himself together.

Thancred tells himself his addled mind is the only reason he’d been willing to act on the reckless impulse that had driven him to slip her journal into his pocket; to steal her most private thoughts despite the fragile state they’d been in, despite her presence, despite reason, despite his conscience. 

There’s reckless, and then there’s _stupid_.

There’s no way in all seven hells he would have taken such a brazen, unnecessary, selfish risk if he’d been in is right mind.

He scarcely even remembers it. 

She’d stepped away, her back to him as she reached for her bag. One moment her journal was lying open on her desk, and the next it was in his pocket. As simple as that. Even though they’d only just mellowed out from screaming at each other and, despite Gwen’s assurances, he had no idea what would become of them once they stepped out of her room. Even though she was on a timer, she was leaving, and the window for trying to talk, for trying to fix it, for trying to recover, was closing far too quickly and he was _just standing around._ Even though she’d been _five sodding fulms away in plain sight_.

If she’d seen him… He can’t even bring himself to conceive of the consequences.

And, beyond that, if she’d put the pieces together and realized just how long he’s been invading her privacy and delving into the thing she treated as an extension of her thoughts…

There’s reckless, there’s stupid, and then there’s self-destructive.

Thancred doesn’t let himself acknowledge that twisted, stricken little piece of him that had hoped she would notice. The guilt-ridden splinter that had all but prayed for her to turn and catch him in the act and then…he doesn’t even know what.

But Gwen hadn’t seen him. 

She had been looking the other way and had no idea he slipped her journal into his pocket. With the hand she’d just mended, no less, because sometimes shame is his bedmate and sometimes it’s a person in a faraway land that he’s never met. 

Then Gwen had taken the aetheryte to Mord Souq, none the wiser, and left him standing dumbly in his room with his thoughts in pieces and his self-righteousness and indignation guttering out under a wave of shame, haunted by the look that had come over her face when he hit her desk, her stolen journal weighing down his pocket like a stone.

The following two days had been…long. Reading her journal had only made them longer.

And when Gwen finally returned she’d been nearly frantic, so preoccupied with finding her ‘lost’ journal she’d all but forgotten about their fight. 

He regretted both being the cause of such strife and allowing it to fester, but it had helped to ease his fear that she might have been suspicious of him.

When they’d finally talked through their fight, calmly, empathetically, and apologized, he’d made sure they were out in public, with plenty of exits and other people, and he maintained a respectful distance and given her plenty of space. Which she’d found odd. But he just couldn’t shake the way she’d looked at him for that one brief moment…

Between their conversation and how relieved she had been to find her journal in her room (right where he’d put it) Thancred had thought all of that had been put behind them, more or less.

But now Gwen is asking, too coincidentally, about trust.

Thancred can’t help the wave of cold nausea that washes across him that upsets the glass in his stomach, his subconscious frantically throwing excuses and explanations together so he can be at least a_ little_ prepared.

Has she known this whole time? Was all that hubbub about combing the streets just an act? 

No, Gwen isn’t that good of an actress. She just _isn’t_. Her panic, her worry, the way she’d been searching the street, that had to have been ge– 

“Does everyone else?” Gwen’s voice is soft, and the tinge of doubt and something far too much like self-consciousness are what snatch him out of his head.

Thancred’s line of thought turns and redirects too suddenly, fumbling for a moment and then coming apart entirely. He opens his mouth to reply but his jaw merely hangs, almost slack, “I…” 

Does everyone else…what?

_Do you trust me?_

_Does everyone else?_

This… None of this has anything to do with her journal, or their fight.

The pieces of glass, the creeping sickness and the twisting worry vanish so quickly he feels a little lightheaded, the accompanying surge of relief almost taking him off his feet.

It takes Thancred a moment to clear up some space in his head and get his mind working again. “Off the top of my head I can’t think of anyone who _doesn’t _trust you,” he says, less than gracefully, “especially amongst our friends.”

Gwen looks up at him, holding his gaze like she’s looking for even the faintest hint that he’s lying for her sake.

He isn’t, but, thanks to his panic moments ago, the scrutiny still makes him uneasy. He does his best to appear as honest and unassuming as his answer..

Her hard look fades after a moment, softening into something apologetic before she tucks herself more snugly against his side 

Seeing how she probably won’t offer an explanation on her own, Thancred prompts, “Why do you ask?

Gwen’s expression draws inward and she shifts her fingers against the back of his hand, pulling at and smoothing out wrinkles in his glove in place of tugging loose threads or twisting rings. “The other day, while we were in Slitherbough I,” she pauses, lips shifting slowly across words she doesn’t say before she finally finds the right one, “overheard something.” She pauses, just for a beat, “Do you remember what Y’shtola said when she first saw me?”

Thancred thinks that’s a rather abrupt change of topic, but doesn’t say so. He squeezes her hands to make up for his silence while he thinks

Y’shtola… She’d called Gwen a sin eater. She hadn’t recognized her at all, in fact, and declared with perfect confidence, _“There is but one manner of creature in this world whose aether is suffused with such an abundance of light.”_

“I remember she was mistaken,” Thancred says, trying to reassure but at a loss as to where this line of questions is leading. “It’s been years since she last laid eyes on you,” he nudges her temple with his chin and pins on a smile, “t’would seem she forgot your natural brilliance.”

Gwen doesn’t outwardly react to that, still wrinkling and smoothing his glove. 

The smile falls from his face. The back of his hand is getting a little sensitive with all of the touching, but he doesn’t mention it.

It seems Y’shtola’s accusation really hit a nerve. Given the absolute certainty and conviction in her voice, he’s not entirely surprised Gwen hasn’t been able to just shrug it off.

But what does that have to do with trust?

“Talk to me, dove,” Thancred mumbles, lifting his hand from her waist to rub her upper arm.. “I can’t read your mind. I can’t know what you don’t tell me.” 

Not entirely true, but…

Gwen draws a few purposefully slow breaths, trying to calm herself, but her shoulders only seem to tense further under his arm.

He waits and tries to think, tries to figure out where these questions started and where they might lead.

Their days in Rak’tika have felt so hectic and long that Thancred can scarcely keep track of everything that has happened. He can’t recall anything, specifically, happening in Slitherbough? Except for when the Eulmoran’s arrived…which eventually led to several long, grief-stricken bells of thinking Y’shtola had been lost to them.

Gwen surely spent every second of those long bells blaming herself, convinced she’d stood by and done nothing as her friend perished. He knows that feeling well, and he doesn’t envy it.

Does any of that have something to do with trust? No one blames her, though surely she’s blaming herself. She says she overheard something…perhaps a traitor among the Blessed, or some clue she hadn’t realized the importance of?

Or is it more to do with what the others had thought of Y’shtola’s accusation? Does she worry they might question her, might distrust her, after being branded a sin eater and being ‘suffused with light’?

Possibly… But nothing hits Gwen harder than loss. He takes a chance.

“If it has anything to do with Ran’jit or Y’shtola’s second foray in the lifestream,” Thancred starts gently. 

Gwen shakes her head. “No, it’s not that.”

He swallows the assurances that are waiting on his tongue.

Five years ago he would have been able to piece together where she was headed with all this.

Five years ago they didn’t yell at one another, nor was she so unsure of his faith in her that she resorted to asking about it.

Gods damnit…

“…Her accusation, then?” Thancred tries, slightly desperately.

Gwen tenses and then huffs, making a frustrated sound of agreement under her breath.

Something distantly related to satisfaction and accomplishment sparks in his chest. He smothers it, now isn’t the time, and waits for her to explain, secure in the knowledge she wasn’t quite so foreign to him as he’d feared.

“Before the Eulmorans came to Slitherbough, I,” she stumbles in the same place again, and her voice loses a bit of volume when she continues, “I overheard Y’shtola talking to Urianger.”

Thancred resumes rubbing her shoulder, trying to reassure. “What about?”

Her mouth crumples with a grimace. “I’m not sure how long they were talking, or how much I missed, but…” 

She tells him what she heard.

By the end Thancred is wearing the stony scowl he’s developed over his five years on the First, dry bitterness curling on his tongue and in his throat. He stares at the ground in the pen, turning it all over for a few minutes before flatly stating, “…So Urianger’s keeping secrets again.”

Gwen has withdrawn a bit, folding her arms against her chest. “We’re killing another light warden tomorrow,” she says, rather grimly, “and neither of them have said a word about it.”

Thancred understands her concerns, sympathizes with her frustration for being left out of the loop, but his shrewder, more pragmatic side is muttering: _what good would telling you have done?_

Gwen has got enough weight to carry as it is without adding such dour questions, especially when they have no answers for them.

After all, Gwen is the only one who can slay light wardens safely (relatively), she’s the only one who can bring darkness back to the First, she’s their only option. She, and the Scions, already knew the undertaking would be dangerous, though precisely _how _dangerous had always been rather nebulous, and forged ahead anyway. 

Knowing the specifics –if anything Gwen overheard could be called ‘specific’– changes nothing. She still has to fight light wardens, she still has to absorb their light, she still has to deal with this ‘nascent corruption’ that she, apparently, was unaware of before Y’shtola beheld her aether, and they have no way to prevent her absorbing more light, nor any way to rid her of what she’s already taken in.

If she hadn’t overheard them she would be in much the same position, would she not? Only without the additional stress of knowing how potentially dire her situation is, or how dire it could become, and without the troubling awareness that they had no solutions. 

Would that really be better than simple ignorance?

…But shouldn’t that be _her_ choice to make? It’s her life, after all. Shouldn’t that mean she’s the one who gets to make decisions about things like this? Doesn’t she, at the very least, deserve to be _aware _that something so dire (or potentially dire, at any rate) is happening to her?

He can see both sides, to say the least.

Thancred looks Gwen over, examining her skin, her hair, her hands, and doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary…whatever that’s worth.

The complication of emotions moving across her face, all of them sharp and aching, gives him pause. Concern pulls on the corners of his mouth and starts pushing his brow together.

Logic doesn’t change the fact that one of her friends was aware of what was happening to her and didn’t utter so much as a word of warning. It doesn’t change the fact that Urianger probably has no intention of telling her anything until the very last moment, just as he had in the Bowl of Embers.

Gwen presses her lips together like she’s struggling to keep her thoughts behind her teeth. She shifts away from him, thrusting her hands down by her sides, and a moment later she relents and exclaims, voice aching with exasperation, “Why didn’t he _tell me_? Why hasn’t he said _anything_?”

Thancred blinks, caught so off-guard by the sudden rise of her voice and surge of emotion that he’s stunned for a moment. 

“Why can’t he just be open or honest with me?” Her tone turns sharper, angrier, “The truth wouldn’t stop me. It can’t, obviously. I know I have to keep going no matter what, I just…!”

Thancred lifts a placating hand, trying to offer comfort, “Gwen–” ‘Keep going no matter what’ clung like tar, stirring unpleasant memories of a time in Ishgard when she’d lamented the fact that the whole of Eorzea viewed her as a tool, a weapon, rather than a person.

“I’m the only one who can kill light wardens, I’m the only one who can do anything about the light,” Gwen flings a hand upwards to indicate the sky, “I know I can’t just _stop_. And I know that if– I know it– I know telling me about the corruption would just give me one more thing to worry about but– This is– It’s happening to _me_! Don’t _I_ deserve to _know_!? _I’m_ the one that’s going to have to deal with– _I’m_ the one absorbing the light, I’m the one who– Shouldn’t _I_, of all people, be aware what that could– what that _is_ doing to me?! Urianger, the Exarch– no one said _anything_. Even Y’shtola only let it slip because she didn’t know it was me!” Her expression twists, threatening to crumple, “She didn’t recognize me. She looked straight at me and called me a sin eater.” 

Thancred shifts his jaw and doesn’t let his expression harden, his chest growing tighter as prickling agitation seeps into his thoughts. He watches her catch her breath, her chest heaving and shoulders slumping. His expression tightens with a sympathetic grimace, words of comfort or reassurance utterly abandoning him. He’s never been able to say the right thing when it mattered, and now seems to be no exception. Gods, he hates nothing more than feeling useless.

Urianger’s motives may be well-intentioned, even noble, but… Gwen has a point.

Gwen shakes her head, and her tone is so resigned and heavy it makes his chest hurt. “I mean, alright, maybe I… Maybe it was naive of me to think I could just,” she gestures listlessly, “just absorb light and be fine, to think there would be no consequences and not think much more about it, but I just… I thought if something started to go wrong or, or if one of my _friends_ noticed something or thought something was happening to me, I thought,” her expression strains and then crumbles in defeat, “I thought someone would _say something_, not just… stand by and leave me in the dark.” 

Thancred’s throat tightens, sharp with anger and thick with sympathy, his heart clenching alongside his fists. He’s still groping for words and finding none, but given the tumult of protective anger building in his head, that’s probably for the best.

Dark green eyes look at him almost pleadingly, vulnerable and full of hurt and doubt that cuts like a knife. “Is it so hard to talk to me? To just be honest? Am I really so hard to trust?”

The anger shatters like glass and Thancred pulls her into a tight embrace, both to keep him from storming to the bunk he’s sharing with the atsrologian –for all of their sakes– and needing the pressure of it to keep his heart from cracking. “It’s not you dove,” he says as firmly and calmly as he’s able. “You’ve done nothing wrong. He just…” Thancred grimaces as her arms slide around him, recognizing the insubstantiality of it before he says it, “He’s trying to do the right thing.”

She tenses and inhales like she intends to speak. 

Thancred has suffered more keenly than most from Urianger’s secrecy and efforts to do what he thought was right, pragmatic and otherwise, for his friends and Eorzea. He empathizes with Gwen’s frustration and feels a little pang of pity for their loquacious friend. Urianger is good at keeping secrets, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for him. “I’m not saying he’s right to keep his secrets, Twelve knows I, of all people, have suffered the bad end of them, but his secrecy has naught to do with you, nor anything you have or haven’t done. He trusts you, Gwen. We all do.”

Gwen is still for a long moment, perhaps weighing his words. She exhales, slowly, and relaxes against him. 

Thancred eases his hold a little, getting on top of the tide in his head and breathing a little more steadily, “I’m sure Urianger has his reasons. Keeping secrets is a suffering all its own, and he isn’t wont to do such unless he thinks it utterly necessary.” He lets out a thin, frustrated groan, “I’m sure intentions are good, that he only wishes to help, but that doesn’t mean his methods aren’t flawed. He keeps his secrets so as not to burden us, or you, with them. He wishes to spare us what he can, as do we all. If any of us could lessen the burden that you, especially, have been made to carry, you know we would.”

He bites off ‘don’t you?’, because his doubts aren’t her problem.

Gwen’s arms tighten around him, and she takes a long breath. “I know.” He didn’t ask, but she assures him anyway. She shifts her arms, and he feels her curl her fingers in his coat. “What about…” She sighs, “What do you make of what Y’shtola said?”

Apparently she doesn’t have the energy to go on another rant, which is actually something of a relief. It wasn’t like her to lose her composure so suddenly, or explosively. 

Thancred can speak about as much for Y’shtola as he could Urianger, though there’s that biting remark she’d made in front of Minfilia that threatens to color his words. He closes his eyes, exhales, and pushes it aside in favor of a more even answer. “I think she has her own concerns and she will make them known to you soon enough, as the two of you are alike in your disdain for secrecy. But, if you’re referring to her comment about your aether…” Thancred shifts his weight, temporizing. He knew this question was coming and he still hasn’t quite worked out a good answer. “I think she isn’t wrong to be concerned. And I think she was right to seek a second opinion and confirm her suspicions rather than coming straight to you with theories and conjecture. But I know for certain that, should something become of this light you’re carrying, she will not hesitate to intervene. Neither will I, nor Alphinaud, Alisaie, Minfilia or Urianger. You’re not alone, dove.”

Gwen noticeably relaxes, her hands easing against his back. That was what she’d wanted to hear. He likes to think the little pet name helped.

Thancred remembers all the times she’s written, and the few instances she’s said, that she feels as though no one remembers that she’s just a person beneath her title. _One person_ who needs to lean on others every now and then, because the world is a terrible weight to carry. 

He lifts a hand to her face and tilts her head up, finding her significantly calmer and steadier between his words and their embrace, though tentative unease still lingers behind her eyes. “You’re strong, Gwen, but I know you have your limits. If ever you falter, know that I’m here to steady you. I will not stand idly by while you suffer the light alone. I’m with you, dove.”

_I will not stand idly by and let you become a sin eater. _Thancred doesn’t say that part even though it’s true, as it’s far too harsh, too fatalistic, too prudent, and it would dampen her mood more than lift it. 

He’s told himself. That’s enough.

Gwen’s expression brightens, softens and warms with something too tender and meaningful to be mere fondness, something he’s gone without since he arrived on the First. One corner of her mouth lifts in a smile and he mimics her, keeping the little burst of soft, almost-heady feelings to himself.

He leans down and she lifts to meet him, whispering against his lips, “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_GUH DOWN TO THE WIRE, I LITERALLY SUBMITTED IT AT 3_  
I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A CHANCE TO WRITE A NOTE AT FIRST BECAUSE I WAS FREAKING OUT BECAUSE I WAS  
ALMOST  
LATE  
ALDJSKFLADK– *passes out*
> 
> _came in with to neaten up this note section and stuff the next day now that I’m not losing my shit…_
> 
> _Thanks rhymingteelookatme on Tumblr for the suggestions!!_
> 
> _I like some parts of this more than others, but overall it’s pretty good!! I spent way, waaay too much time rewriting one particular part over and over and cutting it down again and again, but I like the version that ended up in here.  
The ending is ruuuushed XD but on rereading it’s not quite so bad as I thought_
> 
> _Jaculus are what they call griffins on the First. They look the exact same. Just FYI_


	24. Palaver

_Much of writing on these pages has been scratched out so thoroughly the words are all but redacted, but a handful of sentences are untouched and legible. The entry has no date, nor do many of the ones preceding or following it._

It’s not wrong to hope for the best. I know that. It’s better than nothing, especially when things get dire.

But it’s really hard to find a balance between hoping and being realistic. For me, anyway. How much skepticism is a healthy amount, and how much is just being negative? 

Being perfectly honest, that palaver with Varis zos Galvus went about as well as I thought it would: nowhere. He’s about as self-assured and conceited as I thought he’d be. Not as ignorant, though, at least not in the way we I expected.

Going in thinking like that is what makes these sorts of things not work, but that’s also why I didn’t contribute. Need to work on it though. Used to be better about it, but too worn out right now. 

Work on it anyway. Don’t let it all go to hell just because it’s hard. When everyone is back, do you want to be ‘you’, or do you want to be ‘what’s left’?

The parley lasted forever and didn’t go anywhere, but we learned a hell of a lot. The more I think about it the more it makes my head spin. None of it was good _(the following paragraph is all marked out, footed with a note: Rewrote and reconsidered, go there)_

did give us a glimpse of how much the Empire, or at least Varis, knows about Eorzea and its founding, and showed us how little we actually know of them and their inner workings and history. Need to do our homework. 

<strike>For how intelligent and grandiose he thinks he is he’s still fool enough to side with Ascians and try to outplay them at their own game through pure the destruction the bloody sodding</strike>

I should have spoken up more. Should’ve said something. He was rattling everyone’s cages because he caught us all on the wrong foot. But I didn’t know what to say. I know even less about Garlemald than them.

Note to self: research (_Text is crammed above, below and around the note: Books, check Doma. Cid. Nero? Lucia? Riol?) _

Nanamo might be even better with motivational speeches than Aymeric. She put Varis in his place, even. Sort of. As much as someone that delusional and self-righteous can be put in place, anyway.

I think the leaders felt the same way to an extent, that this talk was just a chance to try and size one another up. But in the end they were all thrown by the breadth of his knowledge. I was too.

And, honestly, they were all a little disappointed it hadn’t led to some sort of understanding or agreement. They were realistic about the whole thing going in, but they’d still hoped for the best, or at least a better outcome.

I had too. I’m disappointed but not surprised. Is there a word for that?

A cessation of fighting, even briefly, would have been nice.

That sort of negotiation just isn’t what I’m made for. Too many hidden implications, too much double-talk and trickery. I hate it.

My head isn’t all here.

The Scions are all still asleep. Nothing’s changed, which is good news and bad, I guess.

No worse, but no better. Neutral. Idle. Waiting.

Gods I hate waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_Did I use the word right? I think I used the word right. Oy vey talk about a weird one @_@ _
> 
> _It’s p phoned in, honestly, but hey I got it done! _
> 
> _Journal entries!_


	25. Attune

Gwen never really thought about the aetherytes while she lived in Gridania, as she’d attuned to them when she was young and didn’t think much about them after the fact. Aetheric travel became so regular for her, such a common occurrence that soon enough it was almost menial, rather than impressive or gratifying, as it perhaps should have been. 

The fact she’d had to walk all around the city and touch each of the little crystals at one point or another simply escaped her at some point. She forgot that there was a point that she hadn’t been able to simply jump from one part of the city to another in an instant. It was similar to how she forgot that, at one point in the past, she’d had to go out and purchase the dishes and cutlery in her house. After a while that fact simply…evaporated, and it became a matter of, ‘oh, it’s always been like that, it’s just simply how it is’.

Not to mention the fact she never really considered leaving Gridania at all, let alone moving to a new city. After all, how would she do that? Working for the Botanist’s guild, levequests and the odd day working at Buscarron’s Druthers were enough to feed her, keep the old house from collapsing, and her gear in usable, working condition, but not much else.

And then she befriended X’hrun and moved to Ul’dah.

Momodi, apparently accustomed to people having a similar mindset, made a point of reminding her she needed to attune not only to Ul’dah’s main aetheryte, but also the inter-city network.

Gwen had stared at her for a moment, nonplussed. Her immediate reaction was to say she’d already taken care of that, had done it ages ago, even, but those words had been stopped from reaching her tongue by the quick smack of her common sense, _You’re attuned to _Gridania_, not Ul’dah. It doesn’t carry over._

How she hadn’t grasped that fact before that moment, she wasn’t sure. It was just something that had become a fact, something she had become accustomed to assuming and using, just like having dishes in her house.

And so she’d set off across the city, trekking through the sweltering city air that smelled of sunlight, sand and exotic spices. Somewhere along the way she wondered if this would be the last time she’d have to reattune to a city. 

Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_When you have precisely 0 ideas except the most obvious, literal option._
> 
> _WELL at least I did it. I’d half considered just skipping it because the struggle was too real @_@_
> 
> _Something things click and some don’t! /shrug._


	26. Heal (Free Day)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set/Starts Post-3.2

Thancred is no stranger to bad days.

Everyone has them, particularly the Scions, particularly since the banquet in Ul’dah.

Even after they’re reunited and life begins to flow again, they all have days where they snap or glower more than they should, more than they’d like to, more than they used to. But they all work on it in their own way.

Thancred has most definitely had a lot of bad days since the Bowl of Embers, since Urianger’s machinations came to light, since he betrayed the Ascian they thought he’d allied himself with, and since Warriors of Darkness left for their world and took Minfilia with them. 

It isn’t every day, somehow. Even though Minfilia’s absence clings to him like static, tinging the edges of his awareness with emptiness that aches if he makes the mistake of thinking about it, every day isn’t necessarily a struggle.

Some are, though.

Thancred soldiers through them all despite, of course. How could he not? He rises when he doesn’t want to and goes on about his life, distracting himself with work when he has to. He does what he should, for his sake and others’, for the sake of Minfilia’s memory. Sometimes he can hide when his mood is dipping and no one is the wiser, but other times his words are too clipped or the smile he pins on isn’t convincing enough to make up for the shadow in his eyes. Sometimes another’s words will mellow him out, as will his for them on their rough days. They check, they balance. It works. They all work through it.

Either way, ilm by ilm, he’s making progress back to being himself, even when the bad days almost feel as though they drive him back rather that stop him in place.

Despite progress, however, some days are just…too much. Too hard. He doesn’t have the energy to crawl out from beneath them. Those are the worst days.

Gwen helps with those. He never asked her to. And they don’t talk much about it after the fact, passively avoiding the topic of that pothole on the road to recovery. 

On the better days when he’s himself, it’s all fine. And the two of them are fine, going about their lives and poorly concealing their relationship. 

On the rougher days, she’s patient. He’s reminded of the time after Lahabrea, when he’d been returned to the Scions and was struggling to put his life back together. She didn’t do anything beyond simply being there, but it was enough. She does that for those days, too.

And on the worst days, the ones that are too much, Gwen becomes a master of being what he _needs _rather than what he _wants_. She bothers him out of bed, talking and asking and cajoling, and she gets him up when others steer clear. She makes him move, even if it’s just to go through the motions, rather than leaving him to wallow in this newfound pit.

When Thancred is too worn, when he can barely lift his head, she’ll coax him into an idle, meaningless conversation about something or other. The kinds of conversations that don’t require thinking because they don’t matter, the kinds that are easy associations, random thoughts and spontaneous replies, the kind that’s just noise. Thancred winds up speaking and chatting even when he feels like he doesn’t have it in him, when he wants to do nothing more than just lie in his bed and wait the day out. Because otherwise Gwen won’t leave him alone, he knows. He won’t get any peace and quiet, and she’s too stubborn to be discouraged and dismissed by being ignored. There’s a little sliver of his own better judgement that her presence riles up, too, that pokes at him and frowns at his laziness until he finally does something just to prove it wrong.

Gwen finds ways to get him out of bed while they talk, sometimes with touches sometimes with glances or gestures. She finds ways to get him dressed without mentioning it, and doesn’t even acknowledge when he glowers at her or grumbles about it. And then, somehow, she gets the two of them walking. Thancred doesn’t know how she does it without him noticing, seeing how she’s no good with subtlety and he’s supposed to be a master of espionage and spying and being aware of himself and his surroundings. He blames magic. He doesn’t know where he gets the energy, either, because he would swear he doesn’t have even an onze in him. 

Often as not they’ll be halfway through some circuitous route around Revenant’s Toll before he realizes she’s gotten him out of the Stones or wherever else he’d holed himself up. 

When Thancred’s mind feels too slow, when even fitting two thoughts together is beyond him, Gwen will ask for his help with something she most definitely does _not _need help with. It’s always something minor, something small and menial that’s just shy of mindless, something that doesn’t actually need him but that he could make easier. Something that, on a good day, would be easy as breathing. Gwen always manages to coax him out of his hole because he already knows arguing with her is a waste of time and he doesn’t have the mental capacity for it anyway. She drags him along so he can suffer through helping with a task that’s perfectly doable with two hands but easier with four, or one that’s fine to do alone but made a bit better with company, even when said company is surly and tired.

Sometimes the ulterior motives are _painfully _obvious. She makes no effort to disguise them anyway.

Like when she asks for help gathering vegetables and herbs when she knows that he’s skipped some meals –because of course she does, she’s got a sodding sixth sense for the health of her comrades. And then when they go to put it all away in the kitchens she finds a way to keep him there while lunch or dinner is made because, hey, they’re already there, right?

Failing that she at least forces some water on him and some food that requires no prep, no time, no cleanup, so he can’t use any of those excuses to refuse it, like a piece of fruit or a stolen muffin.

And dear gods, he _knows _she won’t believe him if he tries to say he’s not hungry or insist that he’s fine. He knows he’ll never hear the end of it if he admits how long it’s been since he’s last eaten, or fesses up to the fact that some nights he doesn’t sleep for no reason beyond the fact that he just _doesn’t_. He knows she’ll get that worried little glint in her eye that makes something deep in his chest sink and throb like a headache. So he waits, and grouses and taps his foot... And he eats, and that night, usually, he sleeps. 

Gwen knows him too well is the problem. And she’s too sodding clever when she wants to be, and too stubborn to be driven off by his bad temper and gruffness. 

Thancred learned early on she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, though that doesn’t always stop him from trying. He learned that getting up and just getting her request _over with_, no matter how aggravating and galling it was to be forced into conversation or dragged out of his room to do something inane, is far easier than trying to argue with her and convince her to leave him be.

And then his pride winds up rankled somehow, grumbling at him, _Are you really going to say you can’t rearrange a couple of books? Are you really going to lie around in yesterday’s clothes and not even get out of bed? Are you really so far gone?_ until he spites himself into submission.

He knows, deep down, that Gwen’s refusal to be shaken, to be dismissed, to be ignored, comes from experience. She knows what it’s like to be stuck in a low place and need a hand out of it, little as said help might be wanted in that moment. He doesn’t know when she experienced such a thing, or the cause, but that tinge of knowing and understanding behind her words makes it clear enough.

Gods and the _way _she asks drives him mad.

Gwen asks like it’s any old day and she simply needs a hand or could do with a bit of small talk, like he’s not wallowing or grumpy or unpleasant to be around. She doesn’t come in ready to bargain, she doesn’t come with the intention to bribe, she doesn’t start with her heels already firmly dug-in ready to goad him. She doesn’t bat her eyelashes or simper ingratiatingly, she doesn’t wink slyly at him or make teasing promises or allusions. She doesn’t ask out of pity, nor begrudgingly, because she knows she _should _check in on him and keep after him.

She just _asks_, simple and genuine, because she simply and genuinely wants his company. She simply and genuinely wants him to get out of bed, get dressed, and be a person despite whatever hollowness is aching in his head or in his heart, despite the hole that opens up under him on the worst days. And then she stands there, watching him with those loud deep-green eyes of hers that know, on some level, what he’s going through and refuse to leave him to suffer like he deserves.

It pulls at him like a magnet pulls iron. She just… Treats him like he’s still himself beneath whatever crap decided to pile on him in his sleep, like it’s simply a bad day that he’ll get through rather than his new, terrible state of being. She treats him like she always has, though perhaps a little gentler. It makes his heart and chest swell and tighten uncomfortably, no matter how much he tries not to think about it.

Thancred is always tempted to argue, to be firm and _refuse_ this time, despite her good intentions, despite his better judgement, despite knowing it’ll be like pulling teeth because she isn’t going to just leave him be, because she never has before and she’s not going to start now. He’s so tempted to say _‘no’_ and stick with it, then just ignore her when he’s too tired to argue, because some days he doesn’t _want to_ and some days he just _can’t_. 

The words, the dismissals, the arguments, always form in his head and sometimes makes it so far as the tip of his tongue.

But then he gets _thinking_, because no matter how tired and crappy he feels, it’s never so much his own mind can’t turn against him. And Gwen just stands there, caring and patient and quietly expectant and so godsdamned empathetic and understanding that sometimes it makes him want to _scream_. 

It’s _not fair._

Thancred always tells her so. He tells her as he pulls himself out of bed, and then peppers it into whatever conversation she manages to pull out of him. He tells her as he reluctantly follows her to whatever menial task she has decided she needs help with. He grouses and mutters and sighs plenty about all manner of things while they walk, talk, work and eat. She takes it in stride, chatting and joking with him like he isn’t being something of an arse. 

He’ll get his comeuppance for it, he knows, but some other time. On a better day when he’s himself without effort, without help, he’ll take it on the chin with a sigh and sardonic smile. She saves her snark for days when his head is clearer, when his mood is higher and steadier, when he has the fortitude to withstand the jeers and jabs and retorts he’s owed. 

Sometimes she saves it for a day when he’s too sharp, to bitter, too angry, and it sobers him up like a bucket of cold water. Those are the hardest, when he’s angry rather than just empty, but she’s a cure for those, too, like iodine on a wound. 

It all evens him out.

Whatever Gwen does to get him out of his room, and whatever grievances he might air for being made to suffer her goodwill, the rambling conversations and bells of light work in the open air always leave Thancred feeling…lighter.

Maybe not ‘better’, precisely, but the invisible weight that grates and tears at him doesn’t feel quiet so heavy when it’s all said and done. He has more energy, for some reason, and the day doesn’t feel so long. His smile and eased mood aren’t so fake. 

At the end of the day he goes to sleep saying he _did something_, however small, and it’s more than nothing. 

At the end of the day he feels like himself on a bad day. It’s a strange thing to think about when he notices it. At the end of those days, the days…felt like a day. A single bad day. A single bad day that’s ending, and tomorrow might be different. The creeping shadow of dreary uncertainty that might otherwise whisper that every day will be as hard as the last is pushed back a little, and he can rest more easily.

At the end of the day, when Thancred slips into Gwen’s room or draws her into his despite all of his earlier grousing and put-upon sighs, he doesn’t feel so much like an intruder or a nuisance. He knows he is one, that he’s a bother, a burden, and that she has to be getting tired of putting up with his low points, occasional as they might be. He knows all of that, but she’s never said anything of the sort. Never even hinted at it. 

Gwen never seems to mind him stealing even more of her time, even though he knows she should. She breathes a comfortable, pleased little sigh when they crawl into bed and cuddle together, sometimes talking, sometimes just listening to each other’s breathing until they fall asleep. She giggles and smiles in the dark when he finds the will to be his old self, when his hands wander and they keep each other up for another bell or two. And when he can’t manage either of those she’s content to merely sleep beside him, so he can have the comfort of not being alone.

Everything she does is…In the moment, it’s annoying, it’s irksome, it’s a pain in the arse. 

And it’s always baffling and bewildering. Her time is so limited, why would she waste babysitting him? Because that’s what all this is, he _knows_ it is.

It’s necessary, whatever annoyance it may bring. It’s healthy.

He needs it. He _needs_ it. More desperately than he’ll ever admit to himself, let alone anyone else. He knows that. That’s part of the reason, he thinks, that he always gives in. She’s giving him what he _needs, _not what he _wants_, and he’s not quite fool enough to refuse it..

At the same time as he feels guilty for his neediness, he’s grateful beyond measure for her concern, for her patience and stubbornness and the affection she freely gives him. He’s grateful for her steadiness and kindness, and for the snark and retorts and looks that remind him when he’s misstepped and hold him accountable despite his mood. He doesn’t deserve all this…this gentleness and care, he knows he doesn’t, but he can’t bring himself to push it away. 

Thancred doesn’t give voice to his gratitude, at least not directly. He knows he should, but…

Gwen isn’t always there, of course. She’s the Warrior of Light. She’s busy. There are dozens of things that take priority over him in the first place, obviously, but she _definitely _has more important things to do that put up with his gloom.

He’s always kept himself informed of her travels, long in the habit of keeping tabs on where she’s off to and when, as well as what she’s supposed to be doing there. But on his worst days he can almost feel that she isn’t there the same way he can feel when a room is empty and he’s by himself. Her absence is strangely palpable even before she doesn’t knock on his door to bother him out of bed. He dreads those days, but not just because she isn’t there to get him out of bed. He…misses her.

At the very least, it’s not quite the detriment he’d feared it would be. Because by the times he has one of those worst days while Gwen’s not around, she’s gone and gotten him expecting things about himself. 

The nerve of that woman, raising his expectations and getting him into good habits.

Even when Thancred doesn’t want to leave his room and Gwen isn’t there to make him, he finds a way. The idea of just sitting around like a bump on a log, the notion of just being useless, the thought of her coming back to hear he’s been brooding alone all day, bothers him when it hadn’t before. It eats at him, to loud and persistent to ignore, until he rolls out of bed and gets up. 

At the very least he gets himself out of his room. Sometimes he gets all the way out to that little park towards the back of the Toll, simply strolling around and people watching. Sometimes he organizes files or does a bit of manual labor, a small task anyone can do, including someone in the mood to do nothing.

It’s all little things, baby steps, but he does them himself, on his own. 

He feels better for it, in the end. As do his friends, watching him stand on his own, with a bit of help every now and then, and move forward rather than slumping like he has before.

There are bumps, of course. No road is perfectly smooth, even when Gwen is there with a guiding hand. Some of the worst days are somehow even _worse_.

There are days, with and without her, that he barely makes it as far as the aetheryte plaza before he’s spent. There are days that whatever little chore he’s started is left half-finished, or completed to just the barest minimum. There are days even a slice of apple and a glass of water feel like too much.

However it ends up, he at least starts it, and getting started is more than nothing. Doing something, even if he doesn’t finish it, is better than doing nothing. He repeats that to himself like a mantra.

Eventually enough time passes that the sheer distance of it is healing in itself, soothing aches and softening hard edges that have taken shape in his thoughts. After a time the worst days lessen to bad ones, and he’s afflicted with them less and less. Thancred finds himself again, just with a few more cracks and chips than he had before.

That’s fine. 

He gets back into his work, his assignments, his routine.

After a time, ‘should’ and ‘knowing’ are enough to combat bad days, enough to get him up and moving in his routine, just like he’s used to.

Thancred is inexorably closer to Gwen now, without the fog of unsorted, tangled emotions and thinly-veiled grief in the way. How could he not be after all that time, all that talking, even though he spent most of it with a frown? How could he not feel something for the one who worked so hard and did so much for him when she didn’t have to, when he hadn’t wanted her to? He wants to make up for being difficult, but he doesn’t know how. She never asks him to.

He knows she’s been changed by everything she’s endured, just as everyone has been, but it’s not so obvious to him as his changes are to her. 

Something like guilt twists and kicks when he realizes that, how he thought he knew her so well and now, a year later, he’s realized he barely knows anything. Or anything of substance, at least. She’d hidden much of herself from him, the same way he’d hidden much of himself from her, he was just too blind, too cocksure and conceited, to realize it. He vows to change that, though figuring out where to start is a bit of a stumbling block.

Thancred knows she has her bad days, too, and he works to notice them and help, just as she did for him. Gwen is more dejected and gray than him on her bad days, but he lets it all roll off him just as she let his bad attitude roll off her, and drags her out of bed.

When she smiles for him it looks…different than it used to, somehow. Warmer, calmer, like something had been teetering, balanced so precariously in her head, behind her eyes, and when Thancred is finally himself again it comes to rest, stable and secure.

As things get better, as Thancred becomes himself again, they settle into an easy and comfortable relationship that they put a modicum of effort into keeping secret. It’s closer and steadier and more assured than whatever they had before the banquet, before everything cracked and fell apart and they had to glue it all back together with some of the pieces missing. 

It’s not too dissimilar at the basest elements, spending time together, talking, intimacy, but it’s malms above the casual, longterm fling they used to have.

They still trade quiet words, share their time, exchange little gestures and gifts, they confide and listen and understand, but there’s something more there now, too. Something with enough weight to stick around. Something that _matters_. They know one another better, have seen the harder, sharper sides, and they’re both still there. He likes this more, too. Though it comes with more responsibilities and more mutual trust that he has to work to be comfortable with. 

And with all that comes… something else, something deeper that he shies away from every time it starts to swell in his chest, doing his best not to think about it too much.

Time passes. It always does. On the whole, days get easier. One step at a time, sometimes bigger steps, sometimes smaller, one day at a time, as Minfilia would have.

Thancred doesn’t say so aloud, sometimes worried whether or not all this progress, this return to normalcy for himself and the others, is really true, or if he’s just having a good few days. A good week. A good moon.

But he knows. 

He finds his way back to being himself again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_:D….?_  
_Yyyeaaahhhhhh..._  
_Some IRL friends are going through some shite and I’m helping them deal with it, and it’s a lot, SO I TURNED IT INTO WRITING because I needed to make space in my head._  
_TL;DR I feel better now._  
_I feel like both Thancred’s recovery after Lahabrea and how he copes after Bowl of Embers aren’t super covered? Maybe the latter a bit, judging by how he reacts to you if you walk to him between/during MSQ. I don’t remember well e_e haven’t played that part in a while._  
_Extra credit day weeeeee_


	27. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set directly after 5.0, spicy at the end ;D

There’s a distant sound that’s far too heavy and loud to rightly be described as a ‘pop’ that jerks Gwen out of her slow descent into sleep. A moment later there’s a sharper ‘crack’, closely followed by a basso ‘bang’ that she can almost feel in her chest.

Thancred hums beside her ear, voice low and quiet, “Fireworks.”

The jolt of surprise dissolves immediately and she relaxes against her pillow. Gwen pries her eyes open, finding her room dimly illuminated by the lamp on her nightstand. Vibrant colors burst to life in the window half a second before another sharp sound cracks through the night sky. 

Between the punches of explosions she can hear the clamor of distant voices, music and merriment echoing up from all of the Crystarium. It’s late, but based on what she can hear the celebration shows no signs of stopping, or even slowing down. 

“They’re still at it,” Gwen says with a yawn. 

She wonders if anyone has noticed that the Warrior of Darkness is no longer among the revelers. 

Yes, probably. Being the cause of the celebration and the center of attention tends to mean her absence is quickly noticed. 

“Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re at it till noon, the way they’re going,” Thancred replies.

Has anyone noticed one of her companions is also conspicuously absent? 

Perhaps. For all his skills at sneaking and subtlety, Thancred has become rather recognizable to the people of the Crystarium thanks to his proximity to her and his connection to the Exarch. All of the Scions have, actually. 

The way the two of them are always together certainly doesn’t make him any less noticeable. She’s sure everyone in the Crystarium has noticed the way he tends to stick close like a bodyguard, never so far away he can’t be at her side at a moment’s notice if necessary.

Gwen’s not sure what people make of that. Still, it makes her smile. 

Her eyes move from the window, taking in the sight of their clothes strewn around the floor, leading up to the bed where they’re tangled up in her sheets and one another, the orange light of the lamp highlighting the last vestiges of sweat on her skin. 

Desire had lit a different sort of spark in them when they’d reached her room, one that had made them crave reassurance as much as pleasure and release. Despite coming out on the other side of everything, despite being there together, doubt still lurked, haunting the back of their minds. What if…

The press of mouths and hands had been desperate, seeking and giving comfort and proof in equal measure, whispering fervently to one another. The relief they’d been so desperate for had crashed over them like a wave when they’d notched their hips together, melting into elation that left them clinging to one another and panting assurances and praise that wrung every last drop of doubt from them. 

They’d survived. _She’d _survived, free of the tainting light.

Thinking about it again, _I’m alive, and the light is gone…_ sends a fervent shiver up her back, excited goosebumps prickling along her skin.

Thancred hums a vague sound, feeling her shiver but not knowing the cause. He’s barely moved an ilm from where he tumbled down next to her after their release, when the pleasure rippling through their bodies had given way to satisfying exhaustion and a simple desire for touch. He’s practically sprawled across her with his head head tucked in the crook of her neck, one leg between hers and one arm stretched across her chest to reach her other hand, their fingers loosely slotted together. 

He looks so very content and comfortable it’s almost obscene, like nothing short of the bed catching fire could make him move.

Gwen keeps her fond little giggle to herself, letting it warm her chest rather than escape, and slides her free hand up into his hair. She twirls pale strands around her fingers and idly debates about whether she prefers the way he wears it here, short and clean like when they first met, or the way it is back on the Source, a little longer and with a braided tail, stylishly unkempt and rakish. She does miss his short beard, though she definitely doesn’t miss him tickling her with it.

Thancred sighs, all drowsy contentment, and she presses a lazy kiss against his brow. 

“Get the light, dove,” he mumbles, turning his face against her neck to hide from the offensive orange glow.

She can’t help grinning, so many bright, tender feelings filling her head she almost feels giddy. “I’m a little stuck.”

He makes an amused sound and nuzzles her neck, hair brushing and tickling. He curls his fingers around her hand and shifts a little to ensure she can’t wiggle out from under him.

Gwen struggles to hold in a laugh, heady, warm affection wrapping around her heart like a blanket. “How do you suggest I turn off the light, then?” 

Thancred shrugs, as though it’s not his problem even though he’s the one that wants darkness. 

She doesn’t manage to keep her laughter to herself this time.

He smiles against her skin, reveling in the sound for before sighing in defeat. “Fine, fine…” He moves _slowly_, like it’s the most difficult thing he’s ever done, pulling his hand from hers, lifting his head and raising himself off her like he’s barely strong enough to manage it. He doesn’t pull away entirely, instead giving her the leeway she needs while waiting for the opportunity to settle right back where he was once the offending light is off.

Gwen shifts over a little and reaches out, the familiar wealth of fondness and adoration and ease bubbling pleasantly in her chest. 

They survived. They’re safe. They’re together.

Thancred smooths a hand across her stomach and over her hip, waiting. Content as he was cuddling, she has the feeling they’re not going right back to sleep.

Gwen grins at him as she clicks the light off.

His mouth is on hers almost before she can think, eager and hungry and a different sort of desperate than before. She presses closer, happily letting him move her, press her back to the bed and settle over her again, encouraging sounds sliding from her mouth to his as she curls her leg over his hip

They find their rhythm, and somewhere between needy sounds and panted breaths Gwen whispers, “I love you.”

Maybe it’s not the best time, not the right time, but in the heat of the moment she can’t help it. She’s sure he knows already, she’s written it before and she’s sure he’s read it, but she knows she owes it to him to say it aloud. She’s wanted to say it for ages now, but hasn’t been able to manage it.

Thancred doesn’t miss a beat, adjusting a little and leaning over her in the dark so the next meeting of their hips makes her see stars. A high, desperately pleased sound that she’s sure rest of the Pendants can hear tears from her throat. 

He shudders against her, muttering an appreciative curse before he sets a new wonderful, ruthless pace. He’s breathing hard over her, moaning and whispering praises she can barely hear past her own cries and the way he’s making her body sing.

.

Under the veil of darkness and with the lewd clap of skin and Gwen’s cries to drown him out, Thancred whispers breathlessly, “I love you, too…”

She doesn’t hear him, her blissful expression, briefly illuminated by a splash of blue and red light, not faltering even for a moment. He doesn’t let himself feel relieved, because he’s having a hard enough time holding himself together as it is between his own pleasure, the feeling of her beneath him, and the sublimely maddening sounds she’s making.

Next time he’ll say it loud enough that she can hear it… Next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Tumblr:  
_I debated about this ending FOREVER!_
> 
> _But I like how it came out :D_
> 
> _  
<s>hey look more mostly-porn-but-not-quite</s>  
_


End file.
